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THE AI THOR. Ajie, lU Voais. 

Not injured by school work. Reason — the use of 
systematic physical culture — work on the farm. 



Education 
The Old and the New 



^ 



SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 
The Experience of Half a Century 

WILLIAM P. HASTINGS 



Published bp the Author 



BATTLE CREEK, MICH. 
1912 



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Copyright, 1912, bv 
WILLIAM P. HASTINGS 



©CI.A31939T 



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DeMcatei) 

To mg Posteriti^ 

To m^ Countrg and 

To mi; God 



flDotto 

The Training for Good Citizenship 



FOREWORD 

The author being an enthusiastic ad- 
vocate of Education for the Masses in all 
that pertains directly to qualification for 
good citizenship, desires to promote the 
interests of the Elementary and the Second- 
ary Schools; and shall regard this little book 
worth all the effort which it has cost should 
it prove a stimulus to teachers in their work 
in these schools. 







Page 


Preface 


. 




11 


Chapter 


I 


Introductory 


25 


Chapter 


II 


Educational Concepts. 








Historical 


28 


Chapter 


III 


More Modern Conceptions 


36 


Chapter 


IV 


The Old and the New 


45 


Chapter 


V 


Genetic Psychology 


49 


Chapter 


VI 


Apperception 


57 


Chapter 


VII 


The Recitation. Its Uses 


71 


Chapter 


VIII 


Incentives to Study 


77 


Chapter 


IX 


Strict Examination by 








Testing Required 


83 


Chapter 


X 


The Teacher's Preparation 








for Recitation 


89 


Chapter 


XI 


Teaching - - . 


93 


Chapter 


XII 


Courses of Study. "What 
Knowledge is of Most 








Worth?" 


99 


Chapter 


XIII 


Curricula. Quantity and 








Quahty 


111 


Chapter 


XIV 


The Fine Arts. Science 


122 


Chapter 


XV 


Higher Education for Work- 








ing People 


133 


Chapter 


XVI 


Health. Physical Culture 


143 


Chapter 


XVII 


Gymnastics 


158 


Chapter 


XVIII 


Playgrounds 


163 


Chapter 


XIX 


Causes for Defectives and 








Incapables 


178 


Chapter 


XX 


Punishments 


189 



Contents 



Chapter XXI 
Chapter XXII 

Chapter XXIII 

Chapter XXIV 
Chapter XXV 

Chapter XXVI 
Chapter XXVII 

Chapter XXVIII 
Chapter XXIX 
Chapter XXX 



Page 

Moral Training. The Old. 
Some Faults - - 213 

Some of the Old which 
should have been retained 
in the New. The Character 
of Text Books on Reading 219 

The New. The Story. The 
School Library - - 227 

The Near New - - 234 

Teachers' Training Schools. 
Uniformity of Qualifica- 
tion ... 250 

Motives of Applicants for a 
Teacher's Course - 258 

Teachers who are of the 
Right Spirit but too Dif- 
fident - - - 275 

The Relation of Subordin- 
ate Teachers to Principals 281 

Special Qualificatons. 
Rules for Teachers - 287 

Summary _ _ - 296 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

' The Author - - - . Frontispiece 

Page 

Folk Games 33 

Soccer Football 43 

Straddle Ball . . _ . _ 109 

On a Hike 119 

^Tent Life 127 

'Alan W. Hastings 141 

Volley Ball 155 

Giant Stride 161 

The Sand Box 175 

Domestic Science 187 

The May Pole 211 

Indoor Baseball 217 

Elizabeth Hastings - - . _ 247 

A Kindergarten Game . _ - _ 255 
'Schoolroom Calisthenics _ . . 265 
A Playground Game - . - _ 273 



10 



PREFACE 

That the Wise Man had in mind the 
■''many books" that have been written on 
pedagogy when he wrote the twelfth 
verse of the twelfth chapter of Ecclesias- 
tes, I do not pretend to assert; but could 
this have been true, he would probably 
have felt that he should have placed more 
emphasis upon his statement. Hence it 
is with some hesitation that I have com- 
plied with a request to offer my views 
upon this much discussed subject. I should 
not do so now if I had theory alone to 
offer, but half a century spent as a teacher 
is my apology for giving some hints from 
my experience. 

I am truly thankful that we have had 
in the past half century so full a discussion 
of the subject. We lack a great deal, 
11 



Preface 

however, of having reached perfection in 
the art of teaching. 

I have been helped greatly in my pro- 
fession by the careful study of Page's 
Theory and Practice, Holbrook's, Raub's 
Ogden's, White's, McMurry's, MacVicar's, 
Northend's, and Harris's writings on Ped- 
agogy, as well as a number of works on 
Psychology including Comstock, Herbert 
Spencer, DeGarmo, James, and Harris. 
Like others, I have had my preferences 
among authors. James's Talks to Teachers 
and Dr. Harris's writings seem best 
adapted to Child Study. As to Comstock, 
he discusses the subject philosophically 
but lacks in the profitable discussion of 
genetic psychology. Herbert Spencer's 
work is profound in its logic and practical 
in its appHcation, as is also DeGarmo 's, 
especially in the discussion of apper- 
ception, or induction and deduction as 

12 



Preface 

applied to practical school room work. 

I may be pardoned by the reader for 
quoting so frequently from these and other 
authors, as they have influenced me in 
my school work to so great an extent that 
I attribute whatever success I may have 
had to having followed their advice. 

The discussions of the subjects presented 
in this book are not intended to apply to 
such an extent to institutions for a Higher 
Education as to the primary and the 
grammar schools, the schools for the com- 
mon people. 

That there exists a pressing need of some 
changes in our common schools is indi- 
cated by the following which appeared in 
one of our late magazines : 
"Remarkable Indictment of our Pubuc 

SCHOOIvS. 

" 'Probably nowhere can the general 
effectiveness of our public schools be so 

13 



Prejace 

well gaged as at the government academies 
at West Point and Annapolis,' remarks 
Col. Charles W. Larned, of the Military 
Academy, 'since their candidates are drawn 
from every Congressional district of every 
State and Territory of the Union, and 
largely from the class of citizens who send 
their children to the primary and high 
schools supported by the States.' 

"Applying the results of this year's 
(1909) entrance examination at West Point 
as a measure of our public school efficiency, 
Col. learned reveals a most depressing 
condition of affairs. 

"Out of 314 who took the examination, 
265, or 84%, failed in one or more subjects; 
209, or 66%, failed in two or more sub- 
jects; while 26, or 8%, failed in ever)rthing. 
The subjects in which candidates are 
examined are : elementary algebra through 
quadratics; plane geometry; English gram- 

14 



Preface 

mar; English literature and composition,. 
(very elementary) ; United States history, 
(high school) ; general history, (high school) ;. 
geography, descriptive, (common school). 

"The minimum mark allowed is 66% 
out of a possible loo. To quote further 
from Col. Larned's paper, which appears 
in the North American Review for Sep- 
tember : 

"Examining the failures by subjects, 
it appears that 154 failed in algebra, 49%; 
237 in geometry, 75%; 129 in grammar, 
41%; 144 in composition and literature, 
45%; 73 in geography, 23%; 54 in history, 
17%. 

"Out of the 314 examined mentally it 
appears that 295, or 93%, have been 
educated in public schools, and that the 
average number of years of attendance in 
these schools was 9 years, 11 months. 
Separating this into primary and secondary 

15 



Preface 

attendance, we find that the average 
attendance in high schools was 3 years 
3 months; and in grammar schools 6 
years 8 months. 

"One hundred and three candidates had 
private schooling wholly or in part; 135 
had college education of one year or more; 
189 studied the classics. Of the 135 who 
had gone so far as a college education of 
one year or more, 82 failed to enter. 
Eighty two failed and were rejected on 
physical examination, and 18 were placed 
on probation; making a total of 100 
physically defective. 

"That 314 youths, nearly all trained in 
our costly public schools, with an average 
of almost ten years attendance supple- 
mented in the case of one third of their 
number by private schooling, and in 
case of 43% of college training, should 
show 84% of failure and the various 

16 



Preface 

deficiencies analyzed above, is surely a 
state of affairs that should make the 
judicious grieve and our educators sit up 
and take notice. That about 30% of 
these lads were physically unfit, is, per- 
haps, the most serious feature of the ex- 
hibit. 

"It will be noted that the weakness of 
the school system here demonstrated is 
by no means a function of locality or 
peculiar to the younger and more sparsely 
settled regions. It is universal. An in- 
spection of the table of failures by States 
shows that New York had 29 failures out 
of 37 candidates; New Jersey, 5 out of 8; 
Pennsylvania, 11 out of 17; Massachusetts, 
16 out of 22; Ohio, 10 out of 14; Illinois, 
10 out of 12; while Iowa had but 4 out 
of 8; Minnesota, 3 out of 6; Tennessee, 
I out of 5 ; Kansas, 6 out of 9 ; Nebraska, 3 
out of 5. 

17 



Preface 

"The number of mental failures in some 
cases is greater for the reason given above 
that these figures show only failure to 
enter. 

"'The results,' says Col. Larned, 'indicate 
a weakness in our methods of instruction 
which must result in a vast waste of time 
of a great portion of the student body;' 
and he emphasizes his argument by citing 
a number of shocking examples from 
which we select the following for quo- 
tation. 

" *F.' from New Jersey, had been ten 
years in grammar school. He made in 
algebra, 33; in geometry, 15; in grammar, 
36; in composition and literature, 46; in 
geography, 52; in history, 52; — faihng in 
everything. He was under the impres- 
sion that the Seine is in Northern Russia, 
the Ebro in Western France. He mis- 
spelled many words, as, 'orbet', 'gess' 

18 



Preface 

'orther', 'cival', 'barbarious', 'cural' (for 
cruel), etc. He conceived Rome as em- 
bracing 'all of the Holy Land or Jerusa- 
salem,' and of Feudalism, as 'one family 
making war on another in their castles'; 
of the War of Roses as between Cromwell 
and the King; of the reformation as 'the 
changing of the people from the evil ways 
to a more Christian way of Hving.' He 
is severe on the Inquisition, which he 
reprobates as 'barbarious methods re- 
sorted to in order to try a person's reh- 
gion. These methods were very cural.' 
As to the causes of the war for the Union, 
he judges that 'slavery was the main 
aggitation. So Carolina done most of 
the disputing and finely ceceded' — which 
cannot be gainsaid. His grammar is no 
less original in conception. 'If is an infini- 
tive. It give ground to make the sense possi- 
ble and if removed causes to be inoperative. ' 

19 



Preface 

" *M.,' a young man from Mississippi, 
of good family, after eight years of mental 
effort — five in grammar school — and three 
in the high school — made a clean sweep 
of everything. In a buoyant flight over 
the fields of general history, he finds 
Athens and Sparta on the 'Tigress.' His 
memorandum of the Spanish Inquisition 
is a model of succinct statement; 'Spanish 
King tried to make every one join the 
Catholic Church, but they protested against 
it and it was carried as planed by the 
King.' In geography, he is without bias 
or partiality. Cape Cod is assigned to the 
eastern coast of North America ; Lookout to 
the northeastern coast of Brazil; Hancock 
to Japan. The Ganges goes to South 
America; the Ebro, to Austria; the Seine, 
to England; the Dneiper to Canada. Hong- 
kong does duty as the capital of Japan — 
a singular suggestion. Cuba settles west 

20 



Preface 

of the Philippine Islands, with Hawaii 
just north; while the Kongo river, dis- 
gusted with the performance of his 
Belgian Majesty, flees sadly to China. 

Says the writer in conclusion : 

''•iThirty per cent of physical deficiency 
in our youth is a condition of our civili- 
zation which may well give concern, 
more especially in view of the increasing 
tendency of population to urban centers. 
What are we going to do about it? and 
if so, what does an educational system 
amount to that shows this percentage of 
deficiency in its output? If education is 
concerned with mental development alone, 
it is fair to ask : 

"If 16,596,503 boys and g^'rls, taught 
in our public schools at a cost of $376,- 
996,472, average no better in intellectual 
attainments than is evidenced by the 
foregoing, does the result justify the out- 
21 



Preface 

lay and the ten or more years' apprentice- 
ship of youth it demands?" 

The foregoing statement by Col. Larned 
seems to relieve me from the necessity of 
further apology for the expression of radical 
opinions on education. Having deferred 
the publication of my book for three 
yearj I find that many changes have been 
made in our public schools since I wrote 
the book, changes for the better, I believe, 
so that at this writing some of the sugges- 
tions contained herein may not seem appli- 
cable. 

The author of this volume has deemed 
an agreement in judgment among edu- 
cators of greater importance than the 
mere expression of his individual opinion, 
however matured by experience. He has 
therefore quoted freely from others who 
have had like experiences and who have 
likewise given much study to the subject. 

22 



Preface 

If a book is worth writing it should effect a 
purpose. In order that it should do so 
it should be convincing in its application 
of principles and truths. As "In a multi- 
tude of counsellors there is safety" so 
also is there effectiveness in the agreement 
of counsellors in regard to what should be 
done for the betterment of humanity. 
Therefore the author has called many 
credible, unimpeachable witnesses to his 
aid by quoting their opinions. 

The maintanence of good health in 
childhood and youth is important. Schools 
should promote rather than injure health. 
Some space has therefore been allotted 
to the consideration of the subject. 
The illustrations in relation to it are 
interspersed throughout the book. Hence, 
some of them may not be found contiguous 
to the subject as considered mainly in 
Chapters XVI, XVII, XVIII and XIX. 

23 



Preface 

It is to be hoped that they may be sug- 
gestive of better school methods in re- 
lation to health. 

Wm. p. Hastings. 
July 31, 1912. 



24 



CHAPTER I. 



Introductory. 

The proper training of the citizens and 
youth of our country is of such importance 
and has such immense possibiUties that 
not only the teachers of our pubHc schools 
should study educational works but also 
those who direct, and so control any part 
of our educational system. The latter 
class, that is the [school officers and 
committee men regarding works on peda- 
gogy as mere helps for the inexperienced 
teacher, sometimes think it beneath them 
to study such works. They fear perhaps 
that to keep them in their private libraries 
might lower their dignity or weaken their 
influence as professional men. 

Their duty is to so qualify themselves 
that they can inteUigently use their in- 

25 



Education — The Old and the New 

fluence toward rendering our elementary 
schools more efficient. Indeed, all pro- 
fessional men and women everywhere 
should not only take an interest in but 
also apply themselves to the study of 
pedagogy and its related sciences. 

The investigation of the interests in- 
volved in the management of our common 
schools is not limited to the foregoing 
classes. But as by far the larger number 
of the children are educated in schools 
supported by the taxpayers and con- 
ducted under the control of laws enacted 
by our legislative bodies it becomes the 
duty of every good citizen, of every voter, 
to examine carefully the educational 
works which are intended particularly 
for the instruction of inexperienced teach- 
ers. By the term 'educational works' is 
meant not only the books but also educa- 
tional periodicals. 

26 



Education — The Old and the New 

It might naturally be assumed that all 
fathers and all m.others would be suf- 
ficiently interested to induce them to 
seek diligently to learn all that could be 
known of child study. Is this true? 
Rather do they not usually look upon the 
training of the young as the business of 
the teacher and so relegate to the school 
much of what should belong and does 
belong to the province of the parents? 
The principles involved in the teacher's 
proper work are equally applicable to the 
parents' work. Hence the importance 
to parents of keeping themselves thorough- 
ly well informed upon the subject. 



27 



CHAPTER II. 



Educational Conceptions. Historical. 

China claims priority in the estabhsh- 
ment of an educational system. This 
claim is probably correct. At least it 
cannot be disproved. Chinese education 
is historically important to modern educa- 
tors because of its having changed so 
little through the ages. It is interesting 
as showing the general trend of all peoples 
in the early stages of the development 
of their systems of education. The legend- 
ary has been assumed as the groundwork 
for history, and upon this basis has been 
erected such educational systems as we 
now have. 

With the Chinese, the principle upon 
which all else depended was the cultiva- 



Education — The Old and the New 

tion of conventional etiquette; especially 
a certain formal respect of sons for their 
fathers. This finally developed into the 
ancestor worship of the present day. The 
Egyptians too adopted similar ideas. For 
the purpose, most likely, of perpetuating 
the memory of their fathers and of their 
kings, more especially, architecture of 
a substantial style was developed through 
the planning and erection of monuments, 
some of which are still in a good state of 
preservation. The Chinese were probably 
interested also in architecture but built as 
they now build in a less durable style. 
The Greek architecture, so famous for its 
graceful lines and for having pressed into 
its service the noble art of sculpture, was 
in its earliest stages the outgrowth of the 
Egyptian, through the Phoenicians. It 
is generally believed that not only these 
branches of art but also other aesthetic 



Education — The Old and the New 

culture was introduced in this indirect 
manner. 

At the time of the migration of the 
Phoenicians, however, Egypt cannot claim 
that she had anything worthy of being 
called literature, as the oldest inscriptions 
consist almost exclusively of crude draw- 
ings of objects, principally animals 
with which the people were familiar. 
These hieroglyphics served either directly 
or as symbols to record events, until their 
ingenuity developed these signs into a 
system which could be called an alphabet. 

During the four hundred years of the 
captivity of the Israelites, they had learned 
something of Egyptian civilization, for 
Moses had been educated in all the learn- 
ing of the priests, the magicians, and the 
soothsayers, who were regarded as the 
"Wise Men" of the nation. 

The Egyptians originated the first sys- 

30 



Education — The Old and the New 

tematic alphabet intended to be on a 
phonetic basis. The Greeks improved 
the alphabet and developed a superior 
literature much of which has been in- 
corporated into the warp and woof of our 
higher education of modern times. Of 
the two branches of the ancient Greeks, 
the Athenians have contributed much 
the larger part to modern civilization. 
They developed philosophy and the fine 
arts while the Spartans cultivated their 
physical well being and their martial 
proclivities. 

Rome, through her emulation of the 
'Greeks, resolved by Spartan courage and 
Athenian philosophy to become mistress 
of the world. Her ambition was turned 
to good account. It resulted in the exten- 
sion of Greek culture which received further 
development. 

After Rome had reached the goal of her 

31 



Education — The Old and the New 

ambition, however, Christianity modified 
her advancement in letters. On account 
of the decadence of her dominance as a 
nation, monasticism assumed control of 
the literature of the period with the pur- 
pose in view of promoting piety. Then 
came the Renaissance during which period 
the Classics were developed. 

In our modern times more of the practi- 
cal, more of the utilitarian, is in demand. 
Hence our conception of a system of educa- 
tion is that it should develop the human 
powers both intellectually and physically 
so that through the character forming 
process it should be conducive to good 
citizenship. 

"It is easy to find fault," is a very clearly 
enunciated proverb. Hence, as might 
have been expected, many of our best 
writers have called attention to the faults 
of the educational systems prevalent 

32 




^ ^ 



^ -% 



O V 



Education — The Old and the New 

at the time of their writing. This showing 
has been followed by helpful suggestions 
of better methods for training the young. 
As the method of treating the subject 
has the merit of having caused great 
changes in the educational processes which 
are universally acknowledged to have 
been improvements upon ancient and now 
obsolete methods, it is fair to presume 
that much may still be done to give 
greater efficiency to education. 



35 



CHAPTER III. 



More Modern Conceptions. 

A pendulum dropped from the ex- 
treme limit of its arc does not stop 
at the lowest point because it has gained 
sufficient momentum to send it upward 
until it reaches almost the height of the 
point from whence it was dropped. So 
it has been, in some cases, when educational 
reforms have been introduced. Supposed 
reforms become "all the rage" among some 
teachers for a time. Teachers vie with 
one another in endeavoring to ''keep 
abreast of the times" until some of them 
reach the opposite extreme. The next 
reaction is to tone down to a sensible 
mean. 

The "Schoolmaster" of our forefathers 

36 



Education — The Old and the New 

**kept school" from eight to ten hours a day, 
teaching each individual pupil without 
grade or class. This method of "keeping 
school all the day long" was found to be 
impracticable and even damaging on ac- 
count of the confinement of the children 
for so long a time each day. 

Then it was found that the same teach- 
ing might be given to a class of the same 
or nearly equal attainments in the same 
time that it had been given to each one 
separately. So classes and grades were 
established. 

Then the period of the daily session was 
gradually shortened and has continued to 
be shortened until in many places the 
school day now lasts from 9 A. M. to 
3 P. M. only, one hour being taken from 
this time for noon lunch. 

The number in each class has been 
increased from time to time until it has 
37 



Education — The Old and the New 

reached forty to fifty in a class. It is 
to be hoped that the pendulum will 
shorten its arc. 

We now have the grades subdivided, 
which is a great improvement over "the 
iron bedstead" method into which we 
had drifted. This method of grading 
and promoting, (now happily in the past 
in most schools,) was to continue the 
pupil in the same grade for one year. 
Then if upon formal examination the pupil 
''passed" in every study, he entered the 
grade next above the one from which he had 
passed. If not passed he must remain 
in the same grade another year. At the 
present time fortunately examinations 
and promotions are more frequent, the 
proficiency of the pupil in the daily reci- 
tation being a prominent feature of quali- 
fication for promotion. 

The subdivision of grades places pupils 



Education — The Old and the New 

more nearly of equal capacity in the same 
class. This is a very important matter 
so far as the advancement of the pupil is 
concerned. 

Under the old regime, (the extreme 
limit of the swing of the pendulum,) the 
writer has observed, in some cases, that but 
two or three members of a class of forty 
or fifty, recited well while the remainder 
were inattentive. It may be assum^ed 
that this was the fault of the teacher; 
but she had so much more work planned 
and apportioned to her by "the higher 
powers" that she seemed driven to this 
method as a necessity. Be this as it may, 
the fact remains, for it still remains in 
some localities, that these listless members 
of a class lose all interest in the subject 
under consideration and soon become 
incapacitated for further study. When 
the basis upon which depends the ac- 

39 



Education — The Old and the New 

quisition of future presentations of the 
branch pursued fails to be understood, 
further progress becomes impossible. 

There is a hopeful growing public 
opinion that means should be provided 
for the teacher to give more personal 
care to individual pupils than is now 
given in the several grades. Coaching by 
teachers employed for this purpose only, 
has been proposed, but this seems ob- 
jectionable because of the diflPerence both 
in personality and in the methods of in- 
struction which would be found to exist 
between the "coach" and the class in- 
structor. A teacher should study each 
individual member of a class in order to be 
successful. To do this the same teacher 
must have the pupil under care both 
during the period of recitation and through 
the study hour, and be accessible, at the 
proper time, to allow the pupil the privilege 

40 



Education — The Old and the New 

of asking questions. This demand for 
more individual attention to pupils must 
he met and granted in the near future, even 
if double the number of teachers are em- 
ployed. Then will the dishonest cram- 
ming for examinations be abolished; then 
the honest every day work of the pupil 
will become the test of capability and 
fitness for promotion instead of the too 
common method of special preparation 
for examination to which the sin of ''crib- 
bing" has been added. By this method 
superficial attainments become rare, and 
thoroughness, the key to real advancement 
in study of every kind, will be promoted. 

After some investigation it was dis- 
covered by the same class of educators 
that cruelty was being practiced by re- 
quring pupils to sit half a day at a session 
upon ill assorted, poorly constructed seats. 

A short interval between the opening 

41 



Education — The Old and the New 

and the closing of the forenoon and the 
afternoon sessions was then instituted. 
The writer has found by carefully testing 
the method, that a shorter interval given 
every hour is much better still, both for 
the pupil's health and for his mental work. 
It is very unfortunate that in some of our 
large cities the rest interval except for 
lunch is being dropped altogether. It 
is found inconvenient to dismiss from a 
third or fourth floor of a school building; 
but it may yet be found, on account of 
danger from fires, that a third or fourth 
floor is not a safe place for schoolchildren. 
Then the recesses or times of recreation 
may be restored. It is said that ''history 
repeats itself." So with school methods. 
They too seem to move in cycles. It is 
to be most devoutly hoped that in the 
future as in the past they may be upward 
in their tendency. 

42 



CHAPTER IV. 



The OivD and the New. 

In discussing the Old and the New, 
while it will be conceded at once that the 
improvement made upon the Old has 
been of immense importance in both 
the methods of imparting instruction 
and of the curricula, 3^et much of the Old 
might have been profitably retained, as 
the author will attempt to show. 

The mistake of our forefathers con- 
sisted principally in expecting too much 
of the child. (Is not this a modern fault 
also?) Therefore in the preparation of the 
course of study the material presented 
was far beyond the child's understanding 
capacity. The methods, of necessity, were 
adapted to the principal error. If the 

45 



Education — The Old and the New 

child failed to understand the lesson, as 
he almost always did, his delinquency 
was supposed to be on account of his 
stubbornness. He must get the lesson 
even though the teacher was convinced of 
his lack of capability. Then followed the 
memorizing of mere words, the pupil giv- 
ing very little heed to the explanation, if 
any was made of the meaning. This is 
very properly termed the "Memoriter 
System" by Prof. Holbrook. Advance- 
ment in education was then under the 
compulsion or force method. Hence the 
popularity of the use of the rod, the 
ferrule and the dunce-cap in those days. 
Thus it may be seen that a single mistake 
lying at the base of a system of education 
is the source of many difficulties which 
otherwise would seem inexplicable. 

The lads of unusual mental capability 
pulled through their tasks, some of them 

46 



Education — The Old and the New 

attaining excellence in their qualifications 
sufficient to fill positions of great respon- 
sibility and so to discharge their arduous 
duties as to leave their names inscribed 
on the roll of honor on the pages of history. 
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, the 
Adamses, and many others of our country- 
men might be mentioned as belonging to 
this class of unusually bright intellects 
who were doubtless capable of understand- 
ing with little trouble what seemed so 
difficult to the mediocre. It may be 
observed here that the wheels of progress 
in better methods of education have been 
somewhat clogged all along by a wrong 
conception of the capabilities of the aver- 
age child. The writing of text books for 
children has usually been done by our 
most talented men. Who so capable as 
they? Yet they too often have made 
the mistake of measuring the capabilities 

47 



Education — The Old and the New 

of the average child by the memory of their 
own childhood, and so have blundered by 
making the ascent in the grade of the 
average pupil too steep. Much improve- 
ment has been apparent in this respect 
within the past quarter of a century. 

An excellent rule to be observed in 
regard to the Old and the New is not to 
discard any part of the Old because it 
is old nor adopt any part of the New 
because it is new. 



48 



CHAPTER V. 



Genetic PsychoIvOgy. 

Much has been written upon this very 
important subject, psychology, and much 
has been taught in the normal departments 
of our universities, but after much investi- 
gation, the writer regards James's Talks to 
Teachers of more value to the beginner in the 
professsion of teaching than any work on 
psychology with which he is acquainted. 
The teacher needs not only the knowledge of 
the constitution and trend of the child's 
mental activities but also the proven 
capabilities and susceptibilities of its men- 
tal endowment, in the practical develop- 
ment of the same. 

Outside of the psychological teachings of 
Doctors Harris, James, McMurray, De- 

49 



Education — The Old and the New 

Garmo, and Herbert Spencer, we find 
little of practical value to the young 
teacher. 

The experienced teacher finds that it 
is necessary to follow carefully the trend 
of the child's mind, adapting to the degree 
of its development, from time to time, 
the helps to generalization by questions 
and other devices as the child reaches its 
points of deduction somewhat after the 
Socratic method. 

It is well enough to show the different 
stages through which the boy passes 
during childhood and youth; that he 
reaches the "Big Indian" stage at or about 
a certain age, etc., but it is of far greater 
importance to the young teacher to be 
instructed in regard to her duty in the 
training of the child during the different 
periods of its development. Some well 
educated people leaning upon certain psy- 

50 



Education — The Old and the New 

chological fads seem to attach a sort of 
fatality to a child's acts. They assume 
that he must pass through those psych- 
ological stages and do all those things 
that seem so unmanly and semi -barbarous 
because he must. The old method for 
the expression of the same idea was, "O, 
he is just sowing his wild oats," forgetting 
the wise teaching given long ago, "What- 
soever a man soweth that shall he also 
reap." It is vain to attempt the hair- 
splitting argument that the word man 
being used here instead of child should 
make this maxim inapplicable, for in 
childhood and youth this great principle 
is even more applicable as experience has 
proved to all observing teachers. Another 
ancient teacher who has always had the 
reputation of having been a wise man, 
wrote as a maxim for all mankind for all 
ages of the world : "Train up a child in the 

51 



Education — The Old and the New 

way he should go and when he is old he 
will not depart from it." 

One of the "go as you please" class 
of readers may say: "O, he is so full of 
animal spirits that he must give them 
full play." True in a sense but he must 
he given training in the use of his energies 
or the consequences will be anything but 
desirable. With training, his energies may 
become profitable not only to him^self but 
also to those among whom his life is to 
be spent. 

A beautiful meandering brook passes 
through a valuable meadow and, on ac- 
count of its tortuous course, causes much 
damage to the owner. What is to be 
done? The answer is obvious. He has 
but to give it direction by making channels 
through which it m^ay pass harmlessly on 
its joyous way. 

A child allowed to have its own way is 

02 



Education — The Old and the New 

like a vessel at sea without a rudder drift- 
ing toward a rock. As it grows older it 
becomes more determined to have its own 
way in all things and resents the applica- 
tion of the rudder. Nevertheless the old 
proverb remains true: ''Those who will 
not be ruled by the rudder will be ruled 
by the rock." 

It is universally agreed that childhood 
is the period for forming habits. They 
are formed at this time whether bad or 
good. If bad habits are allowed, or, 
what is the same thing, are treated with 
indifference and as of no consequence, 
they become irrevocably fixed. The 
youthful liar becomes a dishonest man, 
the thief; hence the undesirable citizen. 
On the other hand, if the child is so taught 
that he is willing to have his mother for 
his confidante, being always truthful and 
obedient during childhood and youth, 

5? 



Education — The Old and the New 

manly habits are formed which make 
him the very soul of honor. In short, 
his habits make him the desirable citizen 
of the kind which is to give stability to 
the Nation. 

Luther Burbank says, "Culture results 
in growth. Education is to man what 
cultivation is to the plant — growth. There 
is this difference, however, as man is a 
rational being with natural powers which 
are to be guided by his will, both power 
and will are so directed by the culture of 
education that they produce a powerful 
controlling principle which is usually 
termed 'habit.' " 

The summing up of the whole subject 
of child training is well given in a paper 
read by Mr. Chancellor at Los Angeles, Cal., 
to the N. E. A. and found in the Report 
for 1907, page 220. 

I. "Physical power is shown by feats 
54 



Education — The Old and the New 

of strength, agility, and by skill in various 
mechanical arts. 

2. "Mental power is shown by thought 
culture, through investigation of phenom- 
ena, and through reasoning upon the 
causes and effects connected therewith; 
as well as all rational action of the mind 
of whatever character. 

3. ''The power of mind with respect to 
morality is directed to social relations, 
particularly, and recognizes the equal 
right of others with ourselves to the en- 
joyment of all that we may desire to satisfy 
our aspirations for temporal, intellectual 
and spiritual blessings. 

4. "Power conferred by the intimacy 
permitted us of enjoying God's approval 
of our attitude toward Him and His 
reciprocating attitude toward us, enables 
us to use all our powers, physical, mental 
and moral so that we can glorify Him^ 



Education — The Old and the New 

in our bodies and in our spirits which are 
His, and hve a life of Christian consistency, 
taking for our model the life of Christ who 
is our perfect example." 

These principles, comprising as they do, 
the basis of all true education , what good , pa- 
triotic citizen could conscientiously oppose 
the teacher in using all proper means for 
the development of the ideal man as in- 
dicated in these basic principles? 

Habit is the only means by which all 
these powers can be utilized. Hence it 
is of infinite importance that right habits 
should be cultivated, wrong ones inhibited 
and weeded out among the children and 
youth attending our schools. 



56 



CHAPTER VI. 



Apperception. 

Much has been said by psychologists 
and writers on pedagogy about the im- 
portance of attention. Too much em- 
phasis has not been placed upon this atti- 
tude of the mind. The thoughtful teacher 
will recognize that the very first step in 
mind activity must be attention. No 
percept can be formed without it, conse- 
quently, no mental activity can exist prior 
to it. The teacher's opportunity then 
is the recitation. If she has her mind 
and heart stimulated by enthusiasm for 
the work by a careful study of the lessons 
which have been assigned, by the study 
of the pupils who are to be taught, and is 
wide awake and conscientious, she will 

57 



Education — The Old and the New 

have little trouble in securing the attention 
which is so necessary to the acquisition 
of knowledge and indeed to all mental 
development. 

Concentration may be said to be a com- 
bination of two psychic principles, atten- 
tion and will, or, in other words, attention 
intensified by the force of the will. Con- 
centration cannot be effectively exercised 
in study except under certain conditions, 
the most important of which is that the 
mental process must be centered upon 
the point under consideration and upon 
that point alone. 

When a child has been crowded through 
the grades by the cramming method he 
reads with difficulty and cannot read 
understandingly; and while he has gone 
through his arithmetic he is unable to 
solve the easy, everyday problems which 
enter into household expenses; knowing 

58 



Education — The Old and the New 

nothing of the application of his supposed 
attainments in mathematics although he 
can solve problems in square and cube 
root; provided that the one which is 
solved in the book is given him. 

The method of cramming into the mem- 
ory the details of subjects merely for the 
purpose of causing the pupils to be able 
to answer expected formal questions used 
in examination so that they can pass to 
the grade next higher is time worse than 
wasted. It is dishonesty of such a charac- 
ter that it should bring immediate punish- 
ment. As it is now practiced it will be 
surely found out ultimately and react upon 
the teacher who practices it and the punish- 
ment will be the teacher's final overthrow. 

Many writers on pedagogy have with 
propriety urged thoroughness as a neces- 
sary requisite for scholarly attainments. 
Young teachers sometimes misapply the 

59 



Education — The Old and the New 

intended meaning of these instructions 
supposing that thoroughness means that 
the whole subject of arithmetic or English 
grammar, for instance, must be forced into 
the child's mind as soon as possible. So 
they resort to the process of cramming as 
the quickest possible method for making 
the child thorough. Arrest of develop- 
ment is the consequence, of course. As 
well might one attempt to force a rose 
to bloom by endeavoring to open a rose- 
bud. Cramming, or the teacher's habit 
of compelling the child to memorize 
definitions either partly or wholly unin- 
telligible to it, is destructive to the most 
important psychological principle needed 
in the process of true education — self- 
activity. Thoroughness must be insisted 
upon only so far as the child is capable of 
understanding the subject taught. This 
involves the very important corollary 

60 



Education — The Old and the New 

that all intellectual culture in the element- 
ary or fundamental principles of a science 
must be permanently fixed in the memory. 
It must be remembered, however, that this 
is a very different proposition from that 
of memorizing words. The fundamental 
idea being thoroughly comprehended it 
is comparatively easy for the child to 
make real progress and that without so 
much of the teacher's help to cause it 
to understand the instructions found in the 
text book. The child's self -activity in 
pursuing its school course should, at all 
times, receive encouragement from the 
teacher. The oft recurrence of the 
questions, "Why is this?" or "What is 
this for?" should receive, as far as possible, 
satisfactory answers from the teacher. 
The self -activity which promotes investi- 
gation into causes and effects leads up to 
the very highest pinnacle of rationality 



Education — The Old and the New 

and, if rightly guided, leads up to the 
great First Cause of all phenomena and 
to the only true happiness for immortal 
beings. 

The reader, if an experienced teacher, 
has met with pupils who seemed dull in 
their studies but intelligent enough on the 
playground. This has caused her to be- 
Ueve perhaps that such pupils were 
simply lazy and perverse when the real 
cause was attributable to a great extent to 
a lack of thoroughness in the preceding 
work done by the pupil. 

Care should be taken that a pupil's 
advancement in reading should not be 
faster than his ability to call the words 
at sight readily and to read understanding- 
ly. Otherwise he contracts all the bad 
habits which cause poor reading. 

Two requisites are needed in teaching 
arithmetic; first concrete problems should 

62 



Education-r-The Old and the New 

be interspersed freely among the exercises. 
This may be done to advantage by using 
what is usually termed * 'mental arithmetic. ' ' 
In order that the reasoning faculties may 
be effectively cultivated oral analysis 
should be required, as it gives a mind- 
habit of great value in pursuing other 
studies. The logical steps in analysis as 
given in Robinson's Intellectual Arithme- 
tic and in Holbrook's School Manage- 
ment have been found by the writer the 
most profitable in cultivating the reason- 
ing faculties, of any that he has used.* 
He has usually stripped them of some of 
the verbiage given in the form of analysis 
but has retained the distinct logical steps 
which are not unlike those used by both 
ancient and modern logicians. 

*Note — To illustrate: (i) 12 is % of what num- 
ber? (2) 12 is % of 7 times Vq of 12. (3) Vq of 12 
is 2, and 7 times 2 is 14. (4) Therefore 12 is % of 
14. 

63 



Education — The Old and the New 

Secondly, the four fundamental opera- 
tions of arithmetic should be practiced 
until they become almost automatic. In 
other words, the learner should become so 
skilful in their use that no mental effort 
is consciously used in the mere addition, 
subtraction, multiplication or division in 
the solution of problems. The pupil may 
be solving a difficult problem in percent- 
age and may, and probably will need to 
concentrate his mental powers wholly upon 
that which to him is a new subject to be 
learned. He first studies his problem; 
then, after devising a practical plan of 
procedure, takes a course which he believes 
will lead to success and which would do 
so, in most cases, but when his previous 
training has been lacking in thoroughness, 
he fails. He fails because his mind has 
been diverted from his straightforward 
course in carrying out his plan, by the 

64 



Education — The Old and the New 

simple effort of taxing the memory for the 
product of 7 by 9 or some such trivial 
deficiency in his early training. 

This rather elaborate discussion of the 
subjects, reading and arithmetic, has been 
used merely to illustrate the need of 
thoroughness in primary training and is 
equally applicable to all the branches of 
elementary education. 

The writer recollects of having been 
waited upon by a deputation of lady 
teachers immediately after completing an 
examination of teachers for the public 
schools of the county of which he was 
then the school superintendent. These 
ladies claimed that the examinations were 
unreasonably difficult. The lady who had 
been selected to do the talking said: **Why 
Mr. Hastings, if you would only ask us 
questions in Pinneo's grammar we could 
answer 'em all from cover to cover; but 

65 



Education — The Old and the New 

you give us parsing and the correction of 
errors and I never did know anything 
about parsing; and besides I don't see 
what that has to do with grammar any- 
way." Of course, the cause of the trouble 
in this case is plain enough. These ladies 
had been educated (?) in English by the 
method commonly called the cramming 
process. They did not succeed, however, 
in changing the method of conducting 
examinations. They continued to be con- 
ducted upon the same general principles. 
It is too often assumed by the teacher 
that a pupil who recites poorly is either 
lazy or indifferent, and being of a sup- 
posed evil disposition, he is treated harshly. 
It may be that the teacher is sometimes 
right in coming to such a conclusion, but 
it is far better to give the culprit the bene- 
fit of the doubt until careful investigation 
reveals the real cause of the delinquency. 

66 



Education — The Old and the New 

The writer had a pupil many years ago 
who had failed to advance in his school 
work until he had reached the stature of 
manhood, while his classmates were little 
boys and girls averaging in size, age and 
literary attainments the fourth grade 
pupil of today. This young man had been 
told by his parents and his teachers, and 
even by his brothers, that he could never 
become a scholar. He had been ridiculed 
by his schoolmates until he had become 
convinced of his utter incapacity. The 
writer had visited the school of which he 
was a member and had seen him abused 
by his teacher. Afterward when the 
writer took charge of this same school, 
he determined to put a stop to this 
abuse. A confidential talk with him 
revealed the fact that he was not dull nor 
evilly disposed but simply discouraged. 
He was assured of his teacher's confidence 

67 



Education — The Old and the New 

in him and of his willingness to assist 
him in making an effort to rise. The 
result was surprisingly gratifying. From 
this time on he advanced more rapidly 
than did his brothers, and he is now, 19 12, 
a modest but intelligent member of society 
and a good citizen in every respect. He 
has an elegant and comfortable home and 
has not in any sense acquired his wealth 
by fraud. His neighbors say of him, 
"He is honest," "His word can be depend- 
ed upon," and other like encomiums which 
any good citizen should value more than 
the emoluments of office. 

In addition to thoroughness as a re- 
quisite for rapid advancement in school 
work, the other incentive promoting such 
advancement is that of causing the pupil 
to believe in himself sufficiently to strength- 
en his will, to such an extent, that all his 
powers shall be brought to bear upon the 

68 



Education — The Old and the New 

course of study necessary to prepare for 
a life of usefulness. To cultivate and 
strengthen such an ambition is a duty, 
nay, it is more than a duty, it is a blessed 
privilege. 

Attention and will power then are the 
two principles which give force to the 
culture of the intellect. The right direc- 
tion must be given to these faculties in 
early life by both parents and teachers 
if best results are attained. But suppose 
the parents are ignorant or are not dis- 
posed to take the time and trouble thus 
to train the child's mind. Then the 
greater responsibility rests upon the teach- 
er. To those who shrink from assuming 
a responsibility so great and who feel 
that their efforts would fail the writer 
would say, if you love your pupil he will 
in most cases love you. So regarding you 
as a friend he will most probably sub- 

69 



Education — The Old and the New 

ordinate his will to your will. Then will 
his attention be secured so that it will be- 
come a habit so fixed that he is not only 
teachable but also tractable so far as right 
conduct is concerned. These considera- 
tions so gratifying to the teacher should 
become incentives sufficient to induce her 
to persevere in her efforts in this direction 
with unflagging energy. 



70 



CHAPTER VII. 



The Recitation. Its Uses. 

The purpose of the Recitation is to 
ascertain what the pupil knows about 
the topic under consideration and to sup- 
ply whatever deficiency may be apparent. 

The latter part of the period allotted to 
the recitation should be devoted to giving 
pupils information in regard to the best 
method of preparing the lesson assigned 
for the next recitation. When this pre- 
liminary instruction is omitted much time 
is wasted by the pupil in the effort to 
ascertain what is intended to be taught. 
Preliminary instruction is of such import- 
ance to the practical and thorough advance- 
ment of pupils that it demands the teacher's 
most careful consideration. The reason- 

71 



Education — The Old and the New 

ing process is impossible without a basis 
for deduction, and reasoning from analogy 
is one of the easiest and the best methods 
of arriving at correct conclusions. 

As an illustration of the utility of 
habituating the student to mental develop- 
ment by reasoning from analogy, or, 
''From the Known to the Unknown', as 
our authors on mental science used to 
term it a half century ago, the writer 
recollects a special application of this 
principle to a class in algebra. He had 
been substituting numerical values in 
algebraic expressions to show the identity 
of the practical and the universal. The 
subject was reciprocals, zero powers and 
negative exponents. The preliminary in- 
struction had been hurriedly given and the 
class dismissed. At the next interval 
for recreation, two ladies of the class re- 
quested him to give the usual numerical 

72 



Education — The Old and the New 

explanation. The following table was 
evolved showing the analogy through 
giving the extraction of roots by division 
by the assumed common factor from the 
highest power given, on downward 
through the zero powder and still downward 
through those affected by negative ex- 
ponents. 

The completeness of the comprehen- 
sion of the principles involved proved to 
be of great value in the subsequent pro- 
gress of the class. 

The following table is the one to which 
allusion has been made : 



73 



Education — The Old and the New 



p a> 



p I fu p I 0! p 



IP pjp pip PIP PIP pip PIP h^ 



11 II II II 11 li II 



P 



II II II II II 

^ 't "t »t ^ 

II II II II II 

« W -fi OO On 

". '. \ I 

S 5 -. ~ O 

o> 
O 



J^l M CBI-I « O^h] « M^j « ^ 



















O 

C/l 

n) 










r 








f 

5- 


-i:r 


«l«- 


K^K 


^\.. 


H.|^ 


H- 


H« 


COHh 


Shi- 


II 


II 


11 


II 


II 


II 


II 


II 


II 


«r 


csi- 


^1^ 


MM 


„ 


N 


-p. 


00 


OS 


II 


II 


II 


II 


II 


II 


1! 


11 


11 


H 


to 


H 


^ 


M 


w 


to 


(0 


(0 


ii>. 


CO 


rc 


1^ 


o 


»-» 




u 


1^ 


II 


II 


II 


II 


11 


II 


if 


11 


11 


fu 


p 


P 


JU, 


113 


p 


&> 


ftj 


P 


>». 




-•^ 


^•^ 


^O 


^1- 


^^s 


-" 





74 



Education — The Old and the New 

This table is quite simple to the mathe- 
matician who has already mastered the 
subject, and with the explanation the 
teacher can give it becomes easy to be 
understood by the learner. 

Some educators lay down a hard and 
fast rule however, * 'Never tell a child 
what it can find out for itself." Such 
an inflexible rule is well meant, certainly, 
being intended to control the teacher in 
the strict observance of the excellent 
method of educating by the drawing-out 
process rather than by the pouring-in 
method. It certainly is a great mistake 
to attempt to educate by filling the mind 
with knowledge without bringing it into 
activity, the pupil being merely a passive 
recipient of the information imparted. 
Extremes in either direction should be 
avoided. But for a teacher assigning a 
lesson to say, "You may examine the 

75 



Education — The Old and the New 

next six pages," or, "You may study 
chapter ten for the next recitation," with- 
out a word of explanation would be about 
as satisfactory to a class as the directions 
to a traveler would be if, upon inquiry, 
he was told to "Keep on in an easterly 
direction," without giving directions in 
regard to distance and as to what objects 
might be seen on the way. Care should 
be exercised by the teacher, however, not 
to tell too much; not to go into details 
which could be obtained by the pupil's 
own effort; but rather to excite interest 
sufficient to cause him to become eager 
to investigate further the work under 
consideration. 



76 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Incentives to Study. 

Incentives to study by giving prizes 
are very properly condemned by most 
writers on pedagogy. The writer of this 
little volume has, however, practiced for 
many years what may be termed an 
artificial incentive by exciting emulation 
sufficient to cause the pupil to value his 
class standing. This method has effected 
the object sought, good recitations and 
consequently satisfactory progress. When 
it is stated that this is the record system 
some may pooh! pooh! and say at once: 
"It is all humbug; a mere form, I have 
seen it used where the pupil gave his own 
report of his estimation of his merit; it is 
but a sort of training in the art of lying," 

77 



Education — The Old and the New 

etc. The writer has seen this self -reporting 
plan used and does not approve of the 
plan. There is, however, a more business 
like method and one which is certainly- 
more accurate. It is this: 

At each recitation a student secretary 
stands at the blackboard and records the 
teacher's decision upon the merit of each pu- 
pil's exercise in the recitation. In order to 
save time each member of the class is known 
by his number on the school register as 
well as by his name. When the class is 
called the secretary goes to the board, at 
once, and writes in a column the numbers 
representing the names of the members 
of the class. As the recitation proceeds 
the secretary writes the result of each 
pupil's effort immediately following the 
number which stands for the name of the 
pupil then reciting. This is recorded, 
not in words nor in per cents but in the 

78 



Education — The Old and the New 

single figures, o, i, 2, 3, 4, and 5; o, means 
failure; (working under this method this 
very rarely occurs;) i, means very poor; 
2, means poor; 3 means fair; 4, good, and 5, 
excellent or perfect. These merits may 
be marked more accurately by writing 
li, 2 J etc., but no other fractions except 
i are needed nor are any other desirable. 
Some one may ask : ' ' Why not use the letters , 
A, B, C, etc., as found in the Monthly 
Reports used in some cities, or the intials, 
E,G, F, U, as in other cities?" The writer 
believes that these last named methods 
are better for Monthly Report Cards 
than the old style percent Reports be- 
cause they show plainly to both pupils 
and parents the class standing reported. 
The six-figure plan, however, is equally 
easy of interpretation by the pupils and 
is much more convenient and accurate 
as a class record. The system is easily 
79 



Education — The Old and the New 

translated into any of the report card 
methods and is susceptible of being 
averaged so as to do the pupil justice in 
the monthly report. 

To illustrate: A pupil may have at- 
tended 20 days during the month, each 
day's recitation having been recorded. 
The subject to be reported upon may 
be arithmetic. The report may stand for 
each of the several days, 4, 3, 3 J, 4, 4, 4, 

4i 5, 4, 3. 4, 4, 4i 3, 3i 4, 4, 5, 4, 5, 
being in the aggregate 80 merits for 
the 20 recitations, or an average of 4 
for the month. They are reported on 
the Monthly Report card to agree 
with the system used by the Su- 
perintendent. Where per cents are 
used this report should be 80%. If the 
first letters of the alphabet are used in 
their order, B, in this case, would be re- 
ported. If the initial method is used, 

80 



Education — The Old and the New 

G as the initial for "Good" would be the 
rating. This six-figure method is more 
stimulating to the pupil than any the writer 
has ever used and is the least objectionable. 
It may be objected that it takes the 
secretary's time. The reply is, it is so 
arranged that a pupil serves but once a 
day; nor is the pupil's time wholly lost, as 
he learns much by observing the recita- 
tion. No one serves as secretary by 
compulsion and all are elected by the 
class which they serve. Many teachers 
may object because they fear that they 
will get the ill-will of their pupils. The 
writer has never found any trouble in 
this respect. The class has observed the 
pupil's effort, has heard the teacher's 
report to the secretary and has seen the 
result written upon the board; all being 
done openly, so that it requires some 
courage on the part of the pupil to object 

81 



Education — The Old and the New 

to what is so obvious to all observers. It 
is always understood, however, that ob- 
jection can he made if made before the class 
is dismissed, a sufficient pause being given 
before dismissing, that the pupil may 
avail himself of the privilege of objecting. 
The question, ''What do you do if he 
objects?" may be asked. The answer is, 
he is examined at once as to his ability 
to recite the lesson and his record is made 
on his last effort. A pupil seldom repeats 
his experience of being subjected to a 
special examination. 



82 



CHAPTER IX. 



Strict Examination by Testing 
Required. 

Written exercises as a part of the reci- 
tation are very good as to method but 
as tests they are not always reliable, be- 
cause it is hard for the pupil to resist the 
temptation to copy from another pupil's 
work or to get some one to prepare the 
exercises for him and then, to make the 
deception complete, to copy it that it 
may appear in the cheating pupil's own 
hand writing. Hence the necessity for 
blackboard work and other testing methods 
to ascertain what the pupil really knows 
about the subject. 

To illustrate: A student teacher in 
the normal school of which the writer 

83 



Education — The Old and the New 

was the principal, requested him to be 
present and observe the analysis to be 
given by the pupils of a class in English 
grammar for which she was the teacher. 
She stated her belief that fraud was being 
practiced but that she was unable to 
detect it. The writer who was the in- 
structor to whom allusion has been made, 
also failed at first to detect it, until stepping 
to the side of the suspected pupil and look- 
ing over her shoulder he saw that a very 
small piece of paper was under the thumb 
place in the text book which she held in 
her hand. It proved that the diagram 
for the analysis of the sentence was on 
this paper. She had copied it on the 
board and had given the oral analysis 
without understanding it. The remedy 
was applied but by a test not so severe 
as the case deserved. She was again 
3ent to the board with her text book, 

84 



Education — The Old and the New 

after the erasure of the diagram which 
she had so gUbly explained, and, though 
seeming to do all in her power to reproduce 
it, she utterly failed to do so; nor could 
she give the oral analysis without taking her 
written work in her exercise book where 
she had diagrams of all the sentences 
assigned, neatly and correctly executed. 
The teacher should be very careful not to 
judge the character of the recitation by 
appearances only. 

As an illustration of inexactness due 
to carelessness on the part of the pupil: 

The writer was observing the work of 
a student teacher whose class seemed to 
be doing very well, indeed. The exercise 
was the correction of errors in syntax. 
The especial subject was the misplaced 
phrase. The sentence to be corrected 
read, **We saw a marble bust of Sir Walter 
Scott entering the vestibule". This was 

85 



Education — The Old and the New 

corrected with such ease and exactness 
that the student teacher was evidently 
proud of the pupil's ability. Something 
in the manner of the pupil's reading, how- 
ever, was noticed by the observer which 
proved to him that the sentence was not 
well understood. Upon investigation it 
was found that not a member of the class 
knew what the sentence was intended to 
mean. Some ludicrous definitions of the 
word "bust" were given which amused 
but mortified the teacher very much. 
She understood the sentence so well her- 
self that she was surprised at the deficiency ; 
while the pupils were so certain that 
they knew so well the meaning that it 
was not necessary, in preparing the lesson, 
to consult the dictionary. 

Especially should care be exercised in 
conducting a recitation in any grade of 
reading. It often occurs that when the 



Education — The Old and the New 

words throughout the passage read have 
been well pronounced and even the modu- 
lation has been fairly good, the purport of 
what has been read has been but poorly 
understood. In one case in a grammar 
grade class the writer remembers a mis- 
conception of the meaning of the entire 
selection read. This ignorance was not 
confined to a few individuals. The entire 
class showed, when questioned, lack of 
comprehension. The student teacher in 
charge had no suspicion of this lack of 
preparation. She should have adopted 
and practiced this most excellent rule 
which all good teachers have adopted for 
their self-government : 

Never Suppose But Prove. 

This secures thoroughness not other- 
wise attainable. 

Ridicule by members of the class must 
not be permitted except in rare cases 

87 
6 



Education — The Old and the New 

when used as punishment of a pupil who 
exhibits arrogant self-conceit; nor should 
the teacher show any signs of amusement 
at the absurd and even the ludicrous 
answers given to questions. This requires 
much self-control because pupils' mistakes 
are often very amusing. 

Teachers and pupils should have one 
rule in common for their self-government. 
It is this: Consult the dictionary for the 
proper pronunciation and meaning of all 
words where there may be any doubt 
about the matter. 



88 



CHAPTER X. 



The Teacher's Preparation for 
Recitation. 

The inexperienced may inquire why the 
teacher, if quahfied in the branches pur- 
sued, should prepare the lesson assigned 
for recitation. The answer is that how- 
ever well the teacher may be qualified in 
a general way, it is necessary that the 
contents of the subject to be considered 
at a particular recitation be reviewed, 
even if its only result be to cause the 
teacher to become more familiar with 
the essentials of the subject so that she 
can give her undivided attention to the 
teaching itself. 

"As the teacher so the class," is a max- 
im worth remembering. Hence the neces- 



Education — The Old and the New 

sity for a wide-awake teacher. Such a 
teacher will succeed because she is sure of 
the undivided attention of the class. 

Teachers cannot be too guarded against 
the popular error that the mere acquisi- 
tion of knowledge is all of education. 
Some may have been prejudiced in early 
life by having read in a school text book 
the selection, "Ejiowledge is Power." 
The author intended well in writing this 
production, but mere knowledge is not 
power. The cultured intellect and the 
mental activity giving force to character 
and intelligence to the application of knowl- 
edge is the real, the true source, of power. 

It must be remembered that success in 
any vocation depends upon keeping in 
view the object to be attained. Hence, 
the importance to the teacher of having 
a well defined, correct conception of the 
purposes of education. 

90 



Education — The Old and the New 

The Chinese conception of education 
seems to have been the acquisition of a 
knowledge of their ancestry, and a train- 
ing in conventional etiquette, especially 
in regard to their behavior toward their 
fathers, and lastly, a knowledge of the 
writings of Confucius. These items of 
knowledge were all committed to memory, 
the formality of a strict adherence to the 
verbiage of ancient days being indispen- 
sable even in their teaching of etiquette. 
This memorizing system was in vogue 
in the history of our own system of 
education through the middle ages, and 
still exercises some influence in the prep- 
aration for our colleges. The mental 
faculties are still supposed to be disci- 
plined and thus strengthened by mere 
memorizing. Happily, leading educators 
are now becoming more and more of the 
opinion that the harmonious training of 

91 



Education — The Old and the New 

all the mental faculties, memory included, 
brings the best results in adult life. 

Science has become more prominent in 
the curricula of both colleges and of 
preparatory schools than formerly. This 
is a hopeful indication for the future 
usefulness of all our institutions of learn- 
ing. The teachers of our common schools 
can add much to this growing public 
sentiment in favor of utilitarian education 
by awakening am^ong their pupils a desire 
for the investigation of scientific subjects, 
the elementary principles of which can 
be readily understood even in the lower 
grades, if the instruction be properly 
given. Instruction upon scientific sub- 
jects should be continued through the 
higher grades until pupils are prepared 
to enter college where the principles of 
the sciences are taught in a more formal 
and philosophical manner. 



CHAPTER XI. 



Teaching. 

In the discussion of the recitation 
allusion has been made to the importance 
of preliminary instruction to enable the 
pupil to grasp the meaning of what is 
intended to be taught in the text book. If 
this instruction is properly given, its 
utility can hardly be overestimated. Much 
depends, however, upon the method of 
instruction, not only upon the preliminary 
but also upon all other instruction given. 

Some teachers of limited experience, 
have thought that the best way to obtain 
the respect of pupils was to impress upon 
them as forcibly as possible the profound 
character of their learning. By the use of 
bombastic language and the assumption of 

93 



Education — The Old and the New 

great dignity, they evidently expect to 
become famous for their learning in a very 
short time. Even children are not slow 
in detecting the shallowness of such man- 
nerisms. The result has been, as it 
deserved, defeat. Disgust, rather than 
respect, has been cultivated. 

Other professions are similarly afflicted. 
The quack has a store of medical terms 
which constitute his principal stock in 
trade. Neither are all our preachers en- 
tirely clear of this fault. The writer 
remembers an instance of high sounding 
rhetoric which deceived a number of 
silly people for a short time. 

Returning from church one Sunday 
a gentleman asked a lady the very com- 
mon question: ''How did you like the 
sermon of the new preacher today?" 

"O, I think it was just splendid," she 
replied. 

94 



Education — The Old and the New 

"What particular passage in the dis- 
course did you most admire?" she was 
asked. 

*'0, it was all good," she replied; "I 
think it was just lovely. I am sure that 
he is the smartest preacher that I have 
heard for many years. His language 
was just grand. O, I think him perfectly 
lovely." 

"Why do you think so?" 

"O, he is so learned. He uses such 
good language that I couldn't understand 
him at all." 

In this instance, however, there were 
enough sensible people in the congrega- 
tion to detect the sham, and his fall came 
quickly and most decisively. 

Teachers, you will do well to observe 
this rule for your self-government: 
Never attempt to impress upon your pupils 
the idea that you are a great personality. 

95 



Education — The Old and the New 

It will most surely react upon yourself 
and you may be regarded great, but in 
another than a complimentary sense. 
You may be pronounced a great humbug. 
''Selfishness always defeats its own pur- 
poses." 

As this proverb is applicable so often 
in these discussions on education and 
good citizenship, the author cannot well 
refrain from giving a short dissertation 
upon it. 

The man in the pursuit of wealth is in 
the "pursuit" of supposed ''happiness." 
He usually indulges a perverted appetite 
however, and too often obtains physical 
as well as mental misery. So it is with all 
who pursue a selfish course through life. 
The principle is wrong and, hence, is 
retroactive, bringing its punishment with 
certainty and defiLuiteness. 

Be natural. While you are studying 



Education — The Old and the New 

the psychological characteristics of your 
pupils as individuals, make friends of 
them by being friendly; being careful, 
however, to preserve your true, per- 
sonal dignity. 

When it comes to imparting instruction, 
study carefully to use simple, clear ex- 
pressions on a level with the children's 
comprehension. Some good, honest 
teachers may fear that by so doing they 
will lower their dignity. Let such teachers 
remember that some of our most dis- 
tinguished public speakers became famous 
through their habit of making all the 
people, even the children, understand 
them through the simplicity of their 
language. So much depends upon the 
tact of the teacher in this direction that 
it may be said to be an all important 
qualification for effective work. 

It is to be regretted that much of the 

97 



Education — The Old and the New 

matter published in our text books lacks 
simplicity. This is more especially true 
of definitions, some of which are not 
sufficiently explicit. 

ExAMPivE: "A phrase is a group of 
words which does not make complete 
sense." 

Teachers have it in their power to 
improve even the text books used. 

Teacher, be loving, be honest, be true, 
use simple language, and your success as a 
teacher is assured. 



CHAPTER XIL 



Courses of Study. What Knowledge 
IS OF Most Worth? 

As to the relative importance of the 
subjects which should constitute a cur- 
riculum for a complete education, if such 
a thing as a complete education were possi- 
ble, the writer begs leave to refer to Her- 
bert Spencer's discussion of the topic, 
"What Knowledge is of Most Worth?" 
found on the first 93 pages of his Work 
on Education. 

The first consideration in preparing a 
course of instruction in our public schools 
should have special reference to prepara- 
tion for good citizenship. 

The second subject of importance to be 
considered should be the preparation of 



Education — The Old and the New 

the pupil to become a producer of what 
may be most needed among those with 
whom his life will most probably be spent. 

Lastly, that which will contribute direct- 
ly to his intellectual enjoyment. The 
term ''directly" is used here because if 
his spiritual, moral, and mental training 
have been what they should be in regard to 
the first and second propositions, he is 
sure to enjoy through these indirect 
sources much greater happiness because of 
his contribution to the welfare of others 
than he could possibly enjoy through 
mere self -gratification. 

The following passage from the report 
of an address by Dr. C. A. Davis puts the 
educational problem fairly and squarely 
before the educating forces, both officers 
and teachers, and all true patriotic 
citizens should give their assistance in its 
solution : 

100 



Education — The Old and the New 

"America has the best public school 
system in the world. But it is necessar- 
ily limited. The public school system 
must from its fundamental plan minister 
to the majority, and the minority must 
do the best it can. A system that ministers 
to 75 or 80 per cent of a people is a success. 
That is our public school system. And 
yet there are some things in our great 
system that may well cause us to reflect; 
18,000,000 boys and girls are in our 
grammar schools to-day, but only 800,- 
000 are found in our high schools and 
academies. A still less number are to be 
found in college. Something is wrong 
somewhere. I do not advocate a college 
education for every boy and girl, but 
when only i in 10 of our boys and girls of 
the grammar schools find their way into 
the higher schools it is time for America 
to examine her educational plant. (The 
101 



Education — The Old and the New 

grammar school course is twice as long as 
the high school and academy, so that we 
see that one in 9 or 10 of the grammar 
school children reach the higher schools.) 
I am an old high school teacher. I know 
what I am talking about. It is absolutely 
impossible for the high school to do every- 
thing in its short school day of five or 
six hours. But it does a magnificent work. 
"The coming revolution in our land is 
over the question, "What is going to be 
done with our boys and girls who cannot 
get the full benefit of the high school?" 
Millions on millions of our citizens in the 
next generation are coming to manhood 
and womanhood without a high school 
education, if there is not a change all over 
our country. And this change cannot be 
made with present arrangements. When 
I boy in 10 secures a high school edu- 
cation^ wh^t of the nine? America is not 
10a 



Education — The Old and the New 

satisfied to leave matters as they were 
one, two and three generations ago, else 
we could succeed to-morrow as well as 
we did yesterday. My grandfather had 
II weeks of education. He made a suc- 
cess in life. My grandson, every bit as 
smart as his great -great -grandfather, can- 
not win a success in his life if he has 
not more than ii years of education. 
Public opinion says this. Five generations 
introduces a revolution. What is going 
to be done? Our present trend is a 
menace to American civilization. I ask 
a question that overtops any question that 
has been introduced into Congress in the 
last generation. What are we going to 
do with our boys and girls who are leav- 
ing school before they have entered the 
high school or the academy? " 

The problem of the course of instruc- 
tion in the pubhc schools should be 

103 



Education — The Old and the New 

simplified by those who have the matter 
in hand by first giving a carefully prepared 
answer to the question, "What Knowledge 
is of Most Worth?" 

In former days the purpose of the 
elementary school was to prepare children 
for the active duties of life so far as they 
related, first, to the providing for the 
necessary sustenance in obtaining food, 
clothing and shelter; secondly, to the 
accumulation of wealth. Hence the 
"Three R's" were emphasized in the cur- 
riculum so decidely that many parents 
became satisfied that business proficiency 
in reading, writing, and arithmetic was 
a sufficient education. In the course of 
time parents becoming ambitious to have 
their children move in better educated 
circles, added to this limited course of 
study. Receiving advice from those in- 
terested in a course preparatory for enter- 

104 



Education — The Old and the New 

ing college, they arranged the common 
school course with reference to the higher 
education as a sort of preparatory school 
for the college course. This college course 
was derived from the supposed needs of 
educated people of the middle ages. As 
caste was then strictly observed and a 
very small percentage of the people were 
in any sense educated, the curriculum of 
the college was arranged to suit the vo- 
cations of the ruling class only. This 
fixed curriculum became so firmly rooted in 
the sentiment of college bred people that 
it became fossilized, metaphorically speak- 
ing. Even now, since the natural sciences 
are claiming increased attention, some are 
wondering why the changes are being 
introduced which make the scientific course 
more popular than the "good old time 
classical course." 
The people of today desire to be con- 

105 



Education — The Old and the New 

sidered very practical in the transaction 
of all kinds of business, hence are not 
so easily governed by precedent as they 
are by their own past experiences and by 
their own reasoning. They admit that 
as our English is a composite language, 
Latin, Greek, French and German, while 
not absolutely essential are desirable 
languages to be learned for the sake of 
their value in the derivation of our Eng- 
lish words, but that science acquired by 
systematic study or by empirical knowl- 
edge is absolutely necessary to all voca- 
tions in life. 

The extreme utilitarian proposition to 
qualify the pupil for the accumulation of 
wealth, merely, is pernicious; damaging, 
not only to the community, but also to the 
individual receiving such one-sided, un- 
systematic, training. The maxim, "Self- 
ishness always defeats its own purposes," 

106 



Education — The Old and the New 

is just as applicable in this as in other 
departments of ethics; but utilitarianism 
by a harmonious development of all the 
faculties necessary to the qualification of 
the pupil, for a life of usefulness to others 
is of a very different character from that 
having the acquisition of wealth as the 
motive. 

Some self-styled educators, however, 
place so much emphasis upon the culture 
of the aesthetic that they seem to forget 
that a large majority of those attending 
our elementary schools must be prepared 
to earn their own living. These not be- 
ing able to take the higher education do 
not get the benefit of the technical high 
school nor of other higher schools of 
technology; nor is the manual training 
department of the grammar school quite 
sufficient to prepare them to secure such 
remunerative employment as to allow 

107 



Education — The Old and the New 

them to enjoy the fruits of their mental 
culture. 

While manual training is good so far as it 
goes, there should be in the grammar 
school a department for vocational train- 
ing which should fit its recipients for their 
life-work as producers in the communities 
where they live. Thus may they become 
contributors to the general welfare. Thus 
may they become the most useful, and, 
hence, the most desirable of citizens. 

Minnesota and some of the other States 
are already taking measures in this direc- 
tion, more especially in the line of scientific 
agriculture. Minnesota is mentioned es- 
pecially because its system is proving of 
exceptional efficiency. 

The N. E. A. educators in their delib- 
erations at Chicago, July, 191 2, gave their 
approval of vocational training very 
decidedly. 

108 



CHAPTER XIII. 



CURRICUI.A. Quantity and QuaIvITy. 

The great danger at the present time 
seems to be in the direction of adding 
still more to the number of subjects 
comprising the course of study ; thus crowd- 
ing the pupil and promoting the cram- 
ming process which renders educational 
attainments so superficial as to be almost 
worthless. 

Those of our school officers who have 
the choosing and the prescribing of what 
is to be taught in the several grades of 
our public schools should remember that 
man is finite, that there is a limit where 
his investigations -must cease, and that no 
one individual has the capacity for ac- 
quiring a practical knowledge of all the 

111 



Education — The Old and the New 

branches now offered by our colleges and 
universities. 

Certainly much of the heathen mythol- 
ogy of two thousand years ago could 
be spared from the college curriculum. 
"What has this to do with the common 
school?" some one may ask. In reply it 
is only necessary to call attention to the 
past. It has been the custom to arrange 
courses of study in the elementary schools 
so that they shall be preparatory for a 
classical course in college ; and the practice 
still prevails in some localities. 

Something is wrong in the college course 
or in its administration. The following 
from a late paper is worth considering : 

"Coivi/EGE Men in Bread Line. 
Mercer says 2 per cent of Prisoners are 
'Varsity Men. 

E. C. Mercer, a former college student 
and a self-confessed drunkard in his 
112 



Education — The Old and the New 

undergraduate days, spoke Tuesday at 
Columbia university, New York, in St. 
Paul's chapel, about ''College Graduates 
on the Bowery." He told the story of his 
own downfall while a student in 1900 at 
the University of Virginia. In his college 
days he was captain of a baseball team 
and prominent in other student activities, 
he said. One day when a freshman he 
accepted a drink in his fraternity house. 
From drinking in a social way Mr. Mer- 
cer said he soon became a confirmed drunk- 
ard without home or friends. His father, 
a judge of the United States court, cast 
him off, and he soon became a Bowery 
"bum." In 1904 he drifted into the Jerry 
McAuley mission in Water street, and 
since then had completely mended his 
ways. At the present time he is engaged 
in mission work, especially among college 
men. In his address Mr. Mercer said that 

113 



Education — The Old and the New 

only 2 per cent of the popualtion go to 
college, and that 2 per cent of the * 'jail- 
birds" are college men. One night, said 
Mr. Mercer, he counted 39 college men of 
his acquaintance in the Bowery bread line, 
and another investigator found 400 college 
men in the Bowery in a single night's 
search." 

Also the following statement from Dr. 
Woodrow Wilson, hinting at the remedy 
for school imperfections, should receive 
our most serious consideration: 

"When once we have the gracious as- 
sistance of fathers and mothers, we shall 
educate their sons. Given that assistance, 
in a generation we will change the entire 
character of American education. And it 
must be changed. Schools and universi- 
ties like Princeton must pass out of ex- 
istence, unless they adapt themselves to 
modern life." 

114 



Education — The Old and the New 

Inasmuch as very few, comparatively, 
can spend the time necessary to acquire 
training in both the scientific and the 
classical courses, the question as to what 
is best to be done hinges upon the main 
question, ''What Knowledge is of Most 
Worth?" Whether or not the deriva- 
tion of words in our language and the 
study of the history of two thousand years 
ago, including the pagan superstitions and 
the bloody details of the history of an 
archaic age, is as valuable as are the 
several departments of physics, chemistry, 
physiology, psychology, etc., is, then, 
the real question. 

To satisfy the demands of patrons, 
elective courses of study have been in- 
stituted in our colleges so that the demand 
of both the conservatives and the pro- 
gressives are provided for. 

The curriculum of the common school 

115 



Education — The Old and the New 

seems now to be drifting toward an elemen- 
tary preparation for the scientific course 
in the institutions for a higher education. 
This is probably the best method at the 
present time for doing the greatest good 
to the greatest number now receiving 
their education in our public schools. 
Such a large percentage of the children of 
our country drop out after completing the 
high school course and so many more 
push their education no further than 
through the grammar school, that it seems 
better that they should receive elementary 
instruction, at least in those branches of 
science hereinbefore mentioned. Especially 
is it important that children should be 
taught during the early part of their 
school life, and indeed throughout their 
entire course, the laws of Ufe and health. 
The proposition that psychology should 
be taught in our grammar schools may 

116 



Education — The Old and the New 

provoke a smile from the reader, but 
even this somewhat abstruse science may 
be written up in language comprehensible 
to the grammar school student. The 
greatest practical benefit to pupils who 
must leave school altogether when they 
finish the grammar course should be the 
aim in preparing a course of study in- 
cluding the natural sciences in the cur- 
riculum of the public schools. 

"While the great bulk of what else is 
acquired has no bearing on industrial 
activities, an immensity of information 
having a direct bearing on the industrial 
activities is entirely passed over." This, 
Herbert Spencer says of the old regime. 
Of the scientific course he says : 

"This order of knowledge, which is in 
great part ignored in our school courses, 
is the order of knowledge underlying the 
right performance of all those processes by 

117 



Education — The Old and the New 

which civilized life is made possible. Un- 
desirable as is this truth, and thrust upon 
us at every turn as it is, there seems to 
be no living consciousness of it. Its very 
familiarity makes it unregarded." . 

It is evident then that the only means 
now generally used in our elementary 
schools for the upbuilding of desirable 
citizenship are but poorly adapted to this 
purpose. Instead of the usual demoral- 
izing details of bloody battles, leaving 
the impression that the greatest patriot- 
ism consists in the slaughter of human 
beings who have been, by some tangle in 
diplomacy, compelled to take the attitude 
of enemies, children should be taught the 
true patriotism of "Good will to men," 
and of the co-ordination of the energies 
and activities as citizens in the accomp- 
lishment of the greatest good to the great- 
est number, even including, in a cos- 

118 



Education — The Old and the New 

mopolitan spirit, those of other nations. 
The true, the real patriotism is usually 
eclipsed by the glamor and the excite- 
ment of the wholesale murder commonly 
called war. The teaching of true patriot- 
ism may be, and will be taught by the 
proper management of the curricula of 
our public schools and the co-operation of 
the Christian teachers. 



121 



CHAPTER XIV. 



CURRICUI.A. The Fine Arts. Science. 

The Fine Arts have been made prominent 
in the primary and grammar courses of 
our pubHc schools, which would be com- 
mendable, certainly, if the time of all the 
pupils was unlimited, but of doubtful 
economy under present conditions. 

Herbert Spencer, on page 66 of his work 
on education, gives his opinion as follows : 

**But even supposing them, (the Fine 
Arts,) to be of such transcendent worth 
as to subordinate the civilized life out of 
which they grow, (which can hardly be 
asserted,) it will still be admitted that 
the production of a healthy civilized life 
must be the first consideration; and that 
the knowledge conducive to this must 

122 



Education — The Old and the New 

occupy the highest place. Grant that 
the taste may be greatly improved by 
reading all the poetry written in extinct 
languages yet it is to be inferred that such 
improvement of taste is equivalent in 
value to an acquaintance with the laws 
of health. Accomplishments, the fine arts, 
belles lettres, and all those things which, 
we say, constitute the efldorescence of 
civilization, should be wholly subordinate 
to the discipline in which civilization 
rests. As they occupy the leisure part of 
life, so should they occupy the leisure part 
of education." 

Recently an intelligent, educated 
mother, in a conversation with the writer, 
in speaking of the methods in vogue in 
our public schools, said: "We have too 
much system." It is fair to presume that 
this is not just what she intended to say. 
It is a fact, however, that a system which 

123 
7 



Education — The Old and the New 

embraces so much in the curriculum as 
to require "home work" with its conse- 
quent evils, by the expenditure of all the 
nervous energy incident to a strenuous 
life, and this, the over-tension of the 
nerves of children from eight to fourteen 
years of age, not only "Defeats its purpose" 
but is also an outrage both upon the 
mental and the physical well-being of the 
child, and may well be classed under 
"commercialism," as excessive child labor 
has been properly classed. 

It is not too much system that is at 
fault. It is the character of the system 
which tempts the teacher, the principal, 
and the school officers, to tolerate, en- 
courage, and even promote, the pushing 
and cramming processes for the sole purpose 
of gratifying private ambition to excell 
in the number of promotions in the several 
departments where these school officers 

124 



Education — The Old and the New 

are employed. Some one may ask: "How 
can ambition be commercialism?" Directly 
it is not, but, indirectly, it is as much so 
as "graft." Kach of these evil doers 
who initiates this pernicious practice ex- 
pects promotion to a more lucrative 
salary in consequence of this "slaughter 
of the innocents." 

If this species of selfishness affected 
only the perpetrators of this crime against 
childhood the case would be different, 
for "Selfishness always defeats its own 
purposes." "Pride goeth before a fall." 
Nor is much sympathy elicited from the 
common people when such aspirants finally 
fall and so find their level. 

Pertinent to the subject of crammmg, 
or the mere memorizing of words, is the 
study of extinct languages as compared 
with the investigation of the principles 
and phenomena of the various departments 

125 



Education — The Old and the New 

of science. The former may discipline the 
mental powers for retaining the forms and 
uses of words. The latter strengthens the 
memory by the retention in the mind of 
fundamental principles and those which 
are developed from them. It furnishes 
food for thought, for reasoning upon 
phenomena which continue their mani- 
festations throughout the course of a life- 
time. 

A thorough knowledge of the classics is 
desirable, certainly, but should the sciences 
be neglected in order that one should 
be able to master the extinct languages? 

It surely accords with logical reasoning 
that the sciences expounding the various 
departments of biology which become so 
imiportant as factors in everyday life 
should be thoroughly understood. 

While the classics furnish food for 
thought and contribute to ability in the 

126 



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Education — The Old and the New 

expression of thought, science contributes, 
not only to profitable meditation leading 
from nature up to nature's God, but it 
is also necessary to the development and 
to the enjoyment of all God -given blessings. 
It may be claimed that many ignorant 
people who have never read a line on 
science, cultivate the soil and are success- 
ful in bringing its products to perfection, 
with a skill equal to those who have 
studied the sciences. It must be remem- 
bered, however, that these ignorant peo- 
ple are usually mere imitators of their 
neighbors, and whatever real skill they 
may have acquired through their own 
originality has been at the expense of 
much miore experimenting than was needed 
had they but had scientific knowledge 
as a basis. So it is in all vocations of 
life. So it is in all the relations of man to 
his environment. 

129 



Education — The Old and the New 

Herbert Spencer sums up the whole sub- 
ject under consideration in these words : 

''Thus to the question with which we 
set out — "What Knowledge is of the Most 
Worth?' — the uniform reply is — Science. 
This is the verdict on all counts. For 
direct self preservation, or the mainten- 
ance of life and health, the all-important 
knowledge is — Science. For that in- 
direct self preservation which we call 
gaining a livelihood, the knowledge of 
greatest value is — Science. For the due 
discharge of parental functions, the proper 
guidance is to be found only in — Science. 
For that interpretation of national life, 
past and present, without which the 
citizen cannot rightly regulate his conduct, 
the indispensable key is — Science. Alike 
for the most perfect production and en- 
joyment of art in all its forms, the need- 
ful preparation is still — Science, , and 

130 



Education — The Old and the New 

for purposes of discipline — intellectual, 
moral, religious, — ^the most efficient study 
is once more — Science. Its worth is not 
dependent upon opinion, but it is as fixed 
as is the relation of man to the surround- 
ing world. Necessary and eternal as are 
its truths, all Science concerns all man- 
kind for all time. Equally at present, 
and in the remotest future, must it be of 
incalculable importance for the relation of 
their conduct, that men should understand 
the science of life — physical, mental and 
social ; and that they should understand all 
other science as a key to the science of life." 
These sentiments have certainly pro- 
duced a profound impression upon edu- 
cators whose influence has brought about 
so many needed changes; but as ''Eternal 
vigilance is the price of liberty" so is it 
also the price of excellence in the process 
of educating the children and youth of our 

131 



Education — The Old and the New 

country. Let there be no backward step, 
but rather the pressing forward with a 
determination to know and to apply all 
best practical methods in the education of 
the children who are to be the future 
citizens of our country. 

It is no longer a theory that science may 
be taught in a practical way in our com- 
mon schools because it is being done in 
the very best schools of our country. Its 
importance as an educational factor, how- 
ever, is not fully appreciated by all our 
teachers. Hence the necessity for em- 
phasizing the subject. Teachers should 
not be satisfied with being mere cogs in 
the educational machine, but should re- 
member that their privilege, nay, their 
imperative duty, is to become creators of 
wise and efficient public sentiment among 
the adult population as well as among the 
children. 

132 



CHAPTER XV. 



Higher Education for the Working 
PeopIvE. 

The "University Extension" work, how- 
ever well intended, has not been wholly 
satisfactory, but it has served a good 
purpose by showing its promoters a better 
plan, a plan which in its beneficence reach- 
es a far greater number, and, consequently, 
produces still greater effects upon citizen- 
ship. 

Oxford University leads at present in 
this direction, as the following statement 
shows. Of course, the reference to caste 
discrimination for which the English plan 
provides would not be applicable to Amer- 
ica, nor should it be; but this does not 
interfere with the general plan, nor need 

133 



Education — The Old and the New 

America adopt the Oxford plan without 
modification. It is, nevertheless, a move- 
ment in the right direction. It is quite 
practical because its beneficiaries have 
a voice in the arrangement of a curric- 
ulum to suit their needs; also a voice in 
the choice of their instructors. 

"The recent report entitled 'Oxford and 
Working Class Education,' comes from 
*a joint committee of the university and 
working class representatives on the 
relation of the university to the higher 
education of workpeople.' Oxford's ac- 
tivity in investigating this question, in 
combination with the Workers' Educa- 
tional Association of England, has already 
borne fruit, and the establishment of a 
new system of working class education, 
which has Oxford's hearty cooperation 
and sanction, is an accomplished fact. 

The new Oxford system, which is the 

134 



Education — The Old and the New 

result of careful deliberation on the part 
of the university and wage-earners, goes 
beyond the old university extension idea. 
The report at hand presents a brief history 
of past educational movements affecting 
work people, and shows why the old Ox- 
ford university extension system failed 
to supply the education that work people 
desired. It was too expensive, too un- 
systematic, and too little in touch with 
working class interests and aspirations. 
There was always some distrust of it in 
trade union circles. Now Oxford is throw- 
ing off its ancient tradition of being a 
university for the aristocracy alone, and 
it plants itself today on the principle that 
one of the functions of a university in a 
democratic community is to be accessible 
to every class. 

The teaching in the so-called tutorial 
classes, to be maintained at numerous 

135 



Education — The Old and the New 

industrial centers of the kingdom, is to 
be adapted especially to the needs of the 
working class, not necessarily along manual 
or technical lines, but along the lines of 
general culture, sociology, economics, his- 
tory and political science. 

The two bases are (i) the establishment 
in towns and cities of tutorial classes and (2) 
the provision of machinery for insuring 
that a proportion of the working class stu- 
dents may pass regularly and easily to a 
course of study in the university itself. The 
first base embraces practically the kind of 
educational work, so far at least as methods 
of teaching are concerned, that is contem- 
plated by the proposed Massachusetts 
College ; while the second base goes beyond 
anything that is provided for in the Massa- 
chusetts charter. A peculiar feature 
of the new Oxford work is the active and 
direct participation of the working class 

136 



Education — The Old and the New 

organizations in the administration of the 
tutorial classes, that is to say, in the 
selection of teachers and lecturers and in 
the framing of courses of study." 

A committee consisting of the members 
of the organization of the working class 
and the managers of the University of 
Oxford have had a conference and have 
agreed upon a plan satisfactory to both the 
work people and to the university. 

The plan, while embracing the full 
representation of the work people in the 
Board of Control so that they virtually 
choose their curriculum are restricted by 
their own voluntary proposition to their 
caste. This does not, however, prevent 
their entering the University as regular un- 
dergraduates ; their previous training being 
so arranged as to prepare them for taking 
place as if they had been resident attendants 
from their beginning this Higher Education. 

137 



Education — The Old and the New 

Oxford, while open to the common 
people in the past, has been too expensive 
an institution for the people generally. 
Thus it has drifted into use by the aristo- 
cratic class, — a university for "Gentlemen's 
Sons." It is now discarding this attitude 
and making it as easy as possible for the 
work people to attain whatever ambition 
in the acquisition of a higher education 
may inspire them to strive after. This is 
truly laudable as an enterprise and is 
equally patriotic in its purposes, as Eng- 
land is sufficiently democratic in its govern- 
ment so that voters wield power enough 
to make their intelligence in casting the 
ballot a very important consideration for 
the entire British Empire. 

This enterprise is already in working 
order and is to be conducted by the organ- 
ization of tutorial classes at the different 
industrial centers so that the students 

138 



Education — The Old and the New 

need not be at the expense of leaving their 
homes to obtain boarding accommoda- 
tions, but can obtain a good scientific 
education and become factors in the general 
culture of even the fine arts among their 
own class and thus advance the higher 
civilization of the Anglo Saxon race. 

Why should not America do the same 
kind of work in a similar manner? 

It is very apparent that the influence 
upon citizenship for good would be almost 
unlimited if this plan is carried out in 
good faith as we have reason to believe it 
will be. This would be especially true 
if attempted in America where the govern- 
ment is a democracy and where so much 
depends upon the intelligence of the voter. 
Massachusetts is already answering this 
question in an active way. Massachusetts 
College has been provided for by legislation, 
but it may yet be found unnecessary to 

139 



Education — The Old and the New 

use a special organization for the purpose 
of promulgating this work. Harvard 
stands at the summit of educational in- 
stitutions in our country and might take 
up the work with the greatest prospect of 
success. Nor will the work be limited to 
the State of Massachusetts. Yale, Johns 
Hopkins, Pennsylvania, Columbia, New 
York, DePauw, Iowa, Tennessee, Virginia, 
Michigan, California, and Leland Stanford, 
and indeed universities all over the country 
will most probably respond nobly to this 
movement which means so much toward 
the betterment of the citizenship of the 
nation. 



140 




ALAN W. HASTINGS, tlraudson of the Author. 

He has passed the usual grades, including kinder- 
garten, and reached the ninth grammar grade with- 
out injury from school management. Reason — the 
same as that which saved the author from health 
deterioration — outdoor work. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



HEAI.TH. PhySICAI^ CUI.TURE. 

A condition of the body when metabol- 
ism is perfect because the assimilative 
and the excretory organs are in perfect 
order, and when the circulation of the 
blood is normal, may be considered a 
condition indicating the best of health; 
but it is almost impossible to find such 
conditions existing in this age of self- 
indulgence, either in childhood or in adult 
life. Heredity entails upon each genera- 
tion physical as well as mental defects; 
thus carrying into effect the penalty of 
violated law even to the "third and fourth 
generations." Still the race is just as 
susceptible to improvement as to degen- 
eration. 

143 



Education — The Old and the New 

William H. Allen's treatise on "Civics 
and Health" should be studied, not only 
by teachers and school officers but also 
by every citizen of our country. This 
author enumerates the following topics 
as demanding consideration in securing 
the health rights of children. 

"Anthropometric measurements, sick- 
ness and open spaces, medical examina- 
tion of school children, teeth, eyes, and 
ears, games and exercises for children, 
open spaces and gymnastic apparatus, 
physical exercises for growing boys and 
growing girls, clubs and cadet corps, feed- 
ing of elementary school children, partial 
exemption from school, special schools 
for "retarded" children, special magis- 
trates for juvenile cases, juvenile smoking, 
organization of existing agencies for the wel- 
fare of lads and girls, education, school atten- 
dance in rural districts, defective children." 

144 



Education — The Old and the New 

In regard to the practical work of 
correcting defects and abuses, he writes 
of shcool hygiene as follows: 

"School Hygiene suggests local, county, 
state, and national machinery necessary 
(i) to protect the child from injuries due 
to school environment, school methods 
and school curriculum; (2) to getting 
things done for the child at home, and on 
the street, need for which is disclosed by 
physical and vital tests at school." 

If parents knew the laws of health and 
were disposed to use their knowledge in a 
practical way in rearing their children, a 
most wonderful change, physically, would 
be effected in the condition of the human 
race within a century; and with this great 
change, physically, would come a greater one 
in the mental, moral and spiritual condition, 
for with perfect health, an equipoise of all 
the mental faculties is equally attainable. 

145 



Education — The Old and the New 

Among intelligent people the day has 
passed when any disturbance of good 
health is to be attributed to a special 
dispensation of Providence. Nor is the 
untimely death of the Httle child attributed 
as once was the custom in the preaching of 
their funerals, to ''the mysterious and in- 
scrutable act of God." 

Is it not within the teacher's responsi- 
bility to add intelligence to a community 
in regard to this important matter? Some 
teachers upon reading this question may 
be inclined to dismiss the suggestion as 
absurd; but the more thoughtful among 
us know that much good has been ac- 
complished in this way. These thoughtful 
ones know that they can and do exert an edu- 
cating influence upon the adult residents in 
the vicinity of the school, by indirection at 
least. Teachers can teach the parents many 
wholesome lessons without seeming to do so. 

146 



Education — The Old and the New 

Physiology and hygiene are now taught 
in our elementary schools. Only the 
simplest elements are taught in the lower 
grades, of course, but enough of the subject 
is presented so that the wise teacher can 
give life-lasting impressions in regard to 
right living. This may be done by using 
carefully prepared conversational exer- 
cises or recitations upon the subject, 
leaving to the pupils for further investiga- 
tion some of the points to be considered. 
This suggests "home study" or "home 
inquiry," but the teacher must not call 
such individual investigations by either of 
these terms. It would be very bad policy 
to tell the pupil to ask his mother or his 
father about the matter. He will be 
most likely to ask his parents, without 
suggestion, because he is expecting to hear 
the question asked at the next recitation 
and would take pride in being the pupil 

147 



Education — The Old and the New 

who might be found able to answer it cor- 
rectly. It should never be hinted to the pu- 
pils that their parents are ignorant even 
though they should be densely so. It 
should never be openly assumed by the 
teacher that the parents are in great need 
of being taught. Rather the parents 
should be caused to feel conscious of all 
the capabilities that they really possess, 
and they should understand that their co- 
operation is expected in the education 
of their children. A friendly, sympathetic 
spirit being thus established, the work 
of adding intelligence to a community 
becomes an easy task. Of course, literary 
societies, debating clubs, and like organiza- 
tions in which the parents take active 
part add greatly to the teacher's opportu- 
nities, and should be encouraged when- 
ever there is an opening in this direction. 
It is well to admit at this point in con- 

148 



Education — The Old and the New 

sidering this subject, that some difficulties 
lie in the teacher's way but they are not 
insurmountable. They may be overcome 
by any well-balanced mind inspired by 
the purposes and aspirations of the true 
teacher. 

The teacher who is sufficiently imbued 
with the desire to promote the welfare of 
the pupils of the community where she 
teaches and the good of our country too, 
will not consider that her duties have been 
rendered too severe by the addition of 
work in this important field. 

Good citizenship is to be promoted 
chiefly through the cultivation of good 
health and through the provision of correct 
environment. By good health and good 
morals all good influences are promoted. 
The citizen whose physical and moral 
health is good is always more public 
spirited in regard to improvements in the 

149 



Education — The Old and the New 

community, state and nation, not only 
those promoting health but also those 
of an aesthetic character. Are not these 
considerations worthy of all the effort re- 
quired of the teacher to promote them? 
Ay, though the work may seem at times 
discouraging on account of lack of appre- 
ciation on the part of those whom she 
seeks to benefit. The reward of an ap- 
proving conscience is at least worth 
striving for. 

A few years ago the writer was in charge 
of a school situated near another of which 
a lady was the Principal. She had taught 
many years in the vicinity but had not 
had the entire responsibility of a school 
before. In consequence of this, many 
persons indulged freely in commenting 
upon her probable success. After many 
favorable accounts of her past services, 
the writer, feeling that she deserved re- 

150 



Education — The Old and the New 

ward for her faithfulness, informed her 
of the many good reports which he had 
heard of her past work. He was grati- 
fied to hear her reply; "Money is not all 
of a teacher's reward." 

In regard to the promotion of health, 
the first thing to be considered is the teach- 
ing of the past as to the best method for 
preserving health. Mr. Page is so ex- 
cellent an adviser on pedagogy that the 
writer has quoted extensively from his 
* 'Theory and Practice of Teaching." His 
instructions are generally very reliable 
but he is most assuredly mistaken when 
he encourages the drinking of water freely 
while eating but advises to avoid it at all 
other times, as he does in giving his ad- 
vice to teachers as to the best method for 
the preservation of their health. Herbert 
Spencer too is a profound philosopher 
and a practical educator but he surely is 

151 



Education — The Old and the New 

wrong in advising parents to give the 
children a full flesh diet, allowing the 
appetite to be the guide in regard to both 
quality and quantity. It is true that 
in a perfectly healthy child an environ- 
ment of such a character that the normal 
appetite would be unperverted it might 
be a safe guide but applied to the average 
child of the present generation the idea 
of this kind of guidance is most absurd. 
It is a well known fact that the craving 
for unwholesome foods, condiments and 
drinks is among the most damaging 
afflictions to the human race. It is un- 
fortunate that these fallacies have been 
promulgated for there are those even 
among teachers who are thoughtless copy- 
ists and are too ready to adopt unthink- 
ingly what is considered "good authority" 
as a rule of action. 

The young teacher may be confused 

152 



Education — The Old and the New 

by reading different opinions of some of 
the assumed scientists of the present time. 
There is a tendency to seek notoriety in 
scientific lines by "faking" claims to new 
discoveries. These assumed discoveries 
are not wholly confined to new advertise- 
ments for cereals either but are sometimes 
endorsed by men who try to pose as the 
learned men of the period. ''What then 
am I to teach?" asks the conscientious 
teacher. In answering it may be said 
that it is a good plan to teach, so far as 
the conscience will permit, what our most 
used authors of the modern text books 
teach. 

In the "Remarkable Indictment of our 
Public Schools" to be found in the Pre- 
face of this little book, it is stated that 
30% of 314 candidates for cadetship at 
West Point were physically unqualified 
to enter that institution. This "Indict- 

153 



Education — The Old and the New 

ment" against our public schools in regard 
to physical disability is hardly fair, how- 
ever, because parents are more to be blamed 
than they. Yet the schools can remedy, 
to a limited extent, physical defects; 
especially those caused by a lack of physi- 
cal exercise in the open air. Through 
a systematic series of gymnastic exercises 
and other hygienic measures the vital 
organs may be stimulated to activity; 
the kidneys which have been overworked 
on account of an excessive use of flesh 
in the diet, the heart which has become 
diseased through cigarette smoking and 
other indulgences of a vitiated appetite 
may be restored to normal action, pro- 
vided the teacher is able to induce the 
pupil to discontinue the practices which 
have caused the troubles. 

Text enough is furnished in our scohol 
physiologies to enable her to do this 

1&4 



Education— The Old and the New 

without offense to any one who has in- 
fluence in the community; but offense or 
no offense, it is the teacher's duty to make 
use of all opportunities for the well-being 
of her pupils. 



157 



CHAPTER XVII. 



Gymnastics. 

Gymnastics and games both are bene- 
ficial for health and intellectual progress 
in mental culture. When the weather 
is unfit for the enjoyment of the playground 
in the open air, the best possible remedy 
for that dulness, general apathy and ob- 
tuseness of the perceptive faculties which 
often come over the school, is a lively 
exercise in calisthenics for a period of 
five minutes or more. The physical well 
being of children is always improved. 

As pure air is one of he most important 
factors for promoting good health, the 
teacher should remember that the school- 
room should be ventilated to the limit while 
the pupils are engaged in indoor exercises. 

It is but natural that the inexperienced 
teacher should inquire for the best system 

168 



Education — The Old and the New 

of calisthenics. The writer has used Dio 
Lewis's, Enebuske's and Gulick's systems. 
While there are some good points in all 
these systems, the writer has found Ene- 
buske's Swedish Gymnastics better suited 
to the schoolroom than the others. A hasty 
review of "Teaching of Elementary Gym- 
nastics," by W. P. Bo wen has convinced the 
writer of its excellence also . It is not well to 
combine different systems. It is much 
better for the inexperienced teacher to 
make selection of a system, purchase a 
manual and proceed in the manner planned 
by the author; for the reason that the 
author of such a work has studied the 
anatomical, physiological and hygienic 
effects produced upon all the organs and 
muscles of the body and has planned for 
the best results to be obtained. 

Should the teacher find, however, no 
system suited to her needs and should 

159 



Education — The Old and the New 

she be an adept in anatomy, physiology 
and hygiene and should be a thoroughly 
trained gymnast she might use Day's 
Orders of her own writing. It is impor- 
tant that they should be systematically 
outlined beforehand. It is not best to 
proceed about any business without a 
plan; and in the profession of teaching a 
written plan is much the best; hence to a 
teacher who prefers a system of her own 
originating, the writer would urge the 
necessity of writing out a plan as perfect 
as her conception would naturally make 
it. Of course, amendments might be 
made from time to time before such work 
would be found entirely satisfactory. 

To those who are at a loss for suitable 
commands for the "Orders", the writer 
has found "Enebuske's Manual of Day's 
Orders" the clearest and most concise of 
any with which he is acquainted. 

160 




GIANT STRIDE. 

At a trifling- expense even a small playground can be 
furnished as represented in this cut. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



P1.AYGROUNDS. 

The most healthful and consequently 
the best of school exercises are the games 
of the playground. It is gratifying to 
note the increasing interest manifested 
in this phase of physical culture at the 
present time. 

The teacher or some one employed for 
this special purpose will introduce, superin- 
tend and regulate the games at all times, 
of course. Much might be said in favor 
of the superiority of the playgroimd over 
other methods of exercise but it is not 
deemed necessary here because its utility 
is universally appreciated. It is a psycho- 
physiological fact that a hearty coopera- 
tion of the mental and physical powers 

163 

9 



Education — The Old and the New 

secures the best results in the interests 
of both. This may be done with adults 
by the formal practice of gymnastics, of 
course, but for children the playground, 
if rightly managed, is sure to secure this 
desirable end. 

The teacher who has had no further 
experience than as subordinate in city 
schools and others of like management, 
having been accustomed to regard the 
responsibility of the school government as 
devolving upon the principal, sometimes 
makes a great mistake after taking the 
position of sole teacher of a school in a 
rural district. She forgets that she has 
the entire charge of the school and pro- 
ceeding upon the basis that she has only 
the oversight and management of the 
pupils while they are in the schoolroom, 
is soon involved in a maze of difficulties. 
In one instance coming under the obser- 

164 



Education — The Old and the New 

vation of the writer, the pupils during the 
noon hour were on the playground while 
the teacher was at her desk deploring the 
profanity and obscenity prevalent among 
her pupils while they were at play. Upon 
inquiry as to why she permitted such con- 
duct, she claimed that it was none of her 
business to interfere with them while on 
the playground. She thought that their 
parents should have given them better 
training. She was correct in this but 
had forgotten that her position in control- 
ling the children was, as it ever should be, 
"/n loco parentis.'' The writer afterward 
took charge of this school as it had grown 
much too large for a single teacher. Very 
little difficulty was experienced in bringing 
about the best of order both inside and 
outside the schoolrooms. 

It is now generally conceded that health 
and physical education are best promoted 

165 



Education — The Old and the New 

by games on the playground, but the 
morals of the pupils must not be neglected 
or the chief purpose of education — a 
better citizenship — will be frustrated. 

A favorite expression among the ad- 
vocates of physical culture is, "First make 
first-class animals of the children and 
then you will have a sound basis for the 
superstructure of their education." This 
is well meant and, in a certain sense, is 
correct; but if the process is not carefully 
guarded the pupils may degenerate into 
"first-class" beasts. 

It is a psychological fact that physical 
well-being through exercise is attained to 
the greatest and most satisfactory extent 
when there is a complete cooperation 
among the physical, mental and emotional 
powers. When a child or youth thorough- 
ly enjoys a game on account of the in- 
centive of emulation and of the conse- 

166 



Education — The Old and the New 

quent feeling that he is the eye of the 
pubhc, every nerve thrills with delight 
at the success he gains and his entire be- 
ing is stimulated to such a degree that 
every vital organ is active. Sluggishness 
of action being thus overcome, assimilation 
goes on iminterruptedly, the excretory 
organs take up their work with renewed 
energy and the life-sustaining blood goes 
pulsating through the arteries with seem- 
ingly joyous activity and with impartiality 
supplies the extremities so that the body 
is in a glow of normal warmth. The re- 
flex action in consequence of playground 
enjoyment brings to the mental faculties a 
relish for study which nothing else can 
give. To the constitution of our being it 
gives a desire for profitable action in the 
vocations of life, especially those of a 
sedentary character, not otherwise at- 
tainable. Infectious diseases are warded 

167 



Education — The Old and the New 

off also by bringing the natural func- 
tions of the body into such activity 
that every defensive force against the 
inroads of disease is alert. Additional 
vitality and vigor is secured from this 
exercise; the whole neuro-murcular mech- 
anism is in an improved condition to 
resist the attacks of disease germs. To 
a great extent, however, the benefits to 
be derived from playground games as 
well as from all other gymnastic exercises 
depend upon the observance of the laws 
of health in other particulars. Hence the 
necessity of competent superintendence of 
playground exercises by the intelligent 
well-qualified teacher, or, better, by a 
physical director. Some teachers may 
object to taking charge of the playground 
and claim that this additional duty would 
be sufficient to cause nervous prostration 
or some other damaging consequence. 

168 



Education — The Old and the New 

If undertaken as a disagreeable duty, 
some serious effect might follow, but if 
the teacher loves her pupils and loves 
her work, and is enthusiastic in her deter- 
mination to do all the good which lies 
within her capabilities, the work will not 
be wearing, more especially if she enters 
into the spirit of the games played as 
does the successful kindergartner. 

The preservation of the teacher's health 
is certainly a most important considera- 
tion ; much might be written about it but, 
after all, the same general rules apply with 
equal adaptability to teachers and pupils. 
The teacher must herself go through the 
calisthenic exercises in giving the drill 
to her pupils so that they may learn to 
execute them properly, nor does it lower 
her dignity, in the least, to go out upon 
the playground and jump the rope with 
her girl pupils. By giving these exercises, 

169 



Education — The Old and the New 

she receives equal benefit to her health 
with those whom she superintends. 

A very important factor in the promo- 
tion of the health of the pupils of a school 
is their frequent physical examination. 
Measurements should be taken once a month 
and should include, of course, a careful ex- 
amination of their eyes, teeth, throats, 
of their hearing and as to the possible 
growth of adenoids. This should be done 
to ascertain physical defects if any exist 
and to provide the remedy. The teacher 
should be supplied with anthropometric 
tables in sufficient quantities so that 
record can be made from time to time which 
should be compared with former measure- 
ments to ascertain what changes have 
taken place and what means should be 
applied for the correction of whatever 
defects may appear. 

Periodical reports should be required 

170 



Education — The Old and the New 

by law from competent medical inspectors 
and teachers of schools as suggested in 
Allen's ''Civics and Health," to which the 
reader is most earnestly referred. The 
topic of medical examination as found in 
his work is of vital importance. This 
book should be in the library of every 
teacher and of every school officer. 

Through heredity and through the lack 
of right living children may be unfit to 
enter school and yet be compelled to attend 
unless such advanced development of 
disease is so apparent that a physician's 
certificate of disability can be obtained. 
Periodical examinations by competent 
medical inspectors would provide relief 
in such cases to the great advantage of 
the one relieved and to the school. The 
physical condition of every pupil should 
be ascertained and recorded in a book for 
the purpose and a duplicate table of the 

171 



Education — The Old and the New 

same furnished to the parents with what 
ever prescription the physical examiner 
may furnish for the correction of defects. 
This being on record in the teacher's 
possession would furnish her the means 
of cooperation with the parents in over- 
coming them. 

That the time is not far distant in the 
future when the physical development 
of pupils in our schools will become a 
part of the duty of teachers to the same 
extent as their mental training is very 
apparent. The teacher will cooperate 
with Boards of Health not only in 
regard to contagious diseases, but also 
in regard to all things pertaining to the 
public health, with the result of producing 
a better class of adult population both 
physically and mentally, besides decreas- 
ing the present fearful mortality among 
children. 

172 



Education — The Old and the New 

That mental and moral conditions de- 
pend, to a great extent, upon the health 
of a community is a well known fact to 
all close observers. 

Physical defects in the past history of 
our educational work have often debarred 
children from obtaining the mental culture 
for which they have had the capability 
Their real physical condition being un- 
known and consequently not provided 
for, they have been relegated to the dunce 
class and have been regarded by both 
teachers and parents as belonging to the 
list of incapables. Most commonly per- 
haps those who have been thus deprived of 
their education have had defective sight 
or hearing, but other physical defects 
have sometimes remained uninvestigated 
until the pupil's opportunity for education 
had forever passed. The cause for ap- 
parent dulness has been overlooked or 

173 



Education — The Old and the New 

more commonly tmknown to parents and 
teachers, and so these poor discouraged 
boys and girls having had such terms, as 
''dunce," "blockhead," "numskull," ''idi- 
ot," etc., applied to them so continu- 
ously as to convince them finally that 
their cases had become hopeless, have 
drifted into a state of discouraged imbe- 
cility. 

As successful journalism is a fair repre- 
sentation of its patronage, the following 
clipped from an editorial shows the trend 
of public opinion and is certainly gratify- 
ing to all who are interested in the welfare 
of humanity. It is taken from a popular 
daily paper of July 26, 191 1: 

"The same public vigilance which puts 
youth through school, that good citizens 
may be made, will one day soon put youth 
through the healthful exercise of its play 
spirit, as a necessary development of the 

174 



Education — The Old and the New 

same process of making good citizens. 
"Boys and girls should be playing ball 
and tennis and taking gymnasium work 
and hearing good outdoor musical con- 
certs in and upon premises owned by the 
public as an investment in good citizen- 
ship and as a solution of the vexed problem 
of giving youth the good time which it 
naturally seeks, and which it too often 
indulges to its destruction." 



177 



CHAPTER XIX. 



Causes for Defectives and Incapables. 

It is safe to predict that when defective 
children are cared for as strictly as the 
grading and other school requirements 
are, the efficiency of our schools will be 
enhanced to a degree of which we can now 
have no adequate conception. 

As an indication that the physical well- 
being of the pupils of our schools is being 
considered by the leaders of advanced 
thought, the wTiter quotes here the follow- 
ing synopsis of the resolutions adopted 
by the World's Congress for the discussion 
of the treatment of that dreadful scourge 
of the human race, tuberculosis; as re- 
ported in the daily papers after its adjourn- 
ment on Oct. 12, 1908: 

178 



Education — The Old and the New 

"Among the results of the labor of the 
gathering was the adoption of a resolution 
recommending the obligatory registration 
of all classes of tuberculosis ; indorsing well 
considered legislation for the regulation 
of factories and workshops; the abolition 
of premature and injurious labor of women 
and children, and the securing of sanitary 
dwellings so as to increase the resisting 
power of the community to tuberculosis 
and to other diseases. Other resolutions 
endorsed personal and school hygiene in 
all schools for training teachers ; the estab- 
lishment in colleges and universities cour- 
ses of hygiene and sanitation; the establish- 
ment of playgrounds as an important 
means of preventing tuberculosis; the 
establishment of hospitals for treating 
advanced cases; sanitoria for curing cases 
and the establishment of dispensaries and 
day and night camps for ambulent cases 

179 



Education — The Old and the New 

which cannot enter hospitals and sanitoria." 

Those wise and philanthropic men also 
looked forward and predicted that "When 
sanitary chemistry will be taught to our 
girls in school, our homes will be healthier." 

The writer is aware that these quota- 
tions do not all bear upon the teacher's 
duty, but it seems necessary to show 
some of our readers that the teacher is 
considered whenever the welfare of society 
is discussed. 

The following is taken from a daily 
paper of Oct. 12, 1908: 

"William H. Allen, secretary of the 
bureau of municipal research, enumerates 
in North American Review, ten steps 
for the protection and physical welfare 
of children in school which constitutes 
a program that is immediately practicable 
in all the states : 

I. A thorough physical examination of 

180 



Education — The Old and the New 

all children of all schools, public, private 
and parochial. 

2. Notifying parents and family physi- 
cian as to children's needs. That tens of 
thousands of records of defects piled up 
at health headquarters do not help children 
has been conclusively proven in New 
York. 

3. "Follow-up" notices with visits to 
inform and to persuade parents to correct 
defects and to remove their causes. 

4. Enforcement of existing laws and se- 
curing proper authority, where this is 
lacking, to compel obstinate parents to 
take necessary steps. 

5. Periodic examination of school child- 
ren during school life. 

6. Physical examination of children 
when applying for work certificates. 

7. Use of information gained regarding 
physical effects of bad living conditions, 

181 

10 



Education — The Old and the New 

to secure enforcement of tenement laws, 
restriction of hours of labor, control of 
dangerous trades, prevention of child 
labor. 

8. School buildings and school cur- 
riculum should be so constructed and 
so managed that they cannot themselves 
either produce or aggravate physical de- 
fects. 

9. The effect of school environment and 
school requirements upon the child should 
be constantly studied. Teachers should 
be examined and re-examined for their 
vitaHty, which exercises an important 
influence upon that of the pupil. 

ID. Hygiene should be taught so that 
children will learn their rights and how 
to maintain them." 

These are but samples of the trend of 
public thought toward placing a portion 
of the responsibility for public health 

182 



Education — The Old and the New 

upon the teachers. Hence in the prepara- 
tion of teachers for their profession our 
Normal Schools, in addition to the train- 
ing for imparting literary instruction, 
should train them as nurses also. 

That the physical director should super- 
intend and direct the instruction given 
in anatomy, physiology and hygiene given 
in our schools is not only reasonable but 
seems also the only rational method. The 
work in these two departments certainly 
coordinate more intimately and with great- 
er practical necessity than most other 
subjects in the usual curriculum. 

The school work which contributes to 
the public health may be and quite proper- 
ly is to be classed as utilitarianism. Well, 
let all such utilitarianism be promoted. 
Then will ethics receive an impetus here- 
tofore unknown. This position is taken 
not only because it is both tenable and 

183 



Education — The Old and the New 

profitable but also because teachers who 
have opposed utilitarianism have done so 
by making the false claim that it would 
tend to exclude the fine arts from the 
curriculum. Such teachers forget that 
a healthy normal child can accomplish 
more in an hour than a defective one can 
in a day. Then let teachers be especially 
careful to qualify themselves in all that 
pertains to the physical betterment of 
the race, and energetically and enthusi- 
astically do what lies within their 
power to improve those under their care 
in their physical well being, and the pros- 
perity of our country will be assured for 
all coming time, political dissensions to 
the contrary notwithstanding. 

This remark from a prominent New 
York principal is worthy of careful thought. 

"Of course, we need physicians to ex- 
amine our children and to teach the 

184 



Education — The Old and the New 

parents, but many of the principals be- 
lieve that our school curriculum and our 
school environment manufacture more 
physical defects in a month than all your 
physicians and nurses will correct in a 
year." 

This statement should cause all superin- 
tendents and other school officers to in- 
vestigate very carefully the present status 
of the courses of study, grading, discipline, 
and last but not least important, the 
sanitary condition of buildings, water 
supply, including drinking cups, and all 
else which may affect the health of teachers 
and pupils. 

It goes without saying that defectives 
who are really and truly such should be 
educated in institutions adapted to their 
needs, and only there. Never should 
they be compelled to attend the ordinary 
public school where the environment tends 

185 



Education — The Old and the New 

toward their discouragement. Their ina- 
bility to keep their places in the regu- 
lar grades with profit to themselves 
interferes seriously with the advancement 
of those who are capable. 

Note— The portraits of the children given in con- 
nection with the subject of physical culture and school 
health are of those who have been sufficiently cared 
for so that both their physical condition and their 
mental state are as near as possible normal; hence, 
prepared for further advancement in all that makes 
life worth while. 



186 



CHAPTER XX. 



Punishments. 

The following from Dr. Johnson of 
dictionary fame, is a fair specimen of 
the old and faulty method of administer- 
ing discipline among pupils. 

*'He used to beat us unmercifully; and 
he did not distinguish between ignorance 
and negligence; for he would beat a boy 
equally for not knowing a thing, as for 
neglecting to know it. For instance, he 
would call up a boy and ask him the 
Latin for candlestick, which the boy 
could not expect to be asked. Now sir, if a 
boy could answer every question, there 
would be no need of a master to teach 
them." 

Comment upon such punishment is 
unnecessary. Suffice it to say, that even 

189 



Education — The Old and the New 

as late in history as the recollection of the 
writer it was very common to see the "Mas- 
ter" with whip in hand "all the day long," 
looking about him for an opportunity 
to administer "government." Such gross 
and inhuman injustice was committed 
in schools in his immediate neighborhood, 
but never in the schools which he attended. 
His schools were spoken of derisively as 
"silent" schools, or, more commonly as 
"Quaker" schools, to distinguish them 
from the prevaiUng "loud" schools of that 
period. 

It is desirable that the school should be 
managed without punishments of any 
kind, but, under present conditions, it 
seems almost impossible to manage some 
schools without them. Some form of 
punishment seems absolutely necessary 
for some cases. The writer has very 
rarely inflicted any painful punishment 

190 



Education — The Old and the New 

during the many years of his experience 
and never used the ferule, the dunce 
block, the dunce cap, nor, indeed, any of 
the more ancient and injurious methods. 

It is a well established principle of 
genetic psychology that whatever act in 
which a child indulges for the pleasure 
which he gets from such indulgence will 
be repeated unless the experience follow- 
ing such act be disagreeable enough to 
be prohibitive. "A burnt child dreads 
the fire" is a proverb by which educators 
may profit when considering this question. 

To illustrate: Should a child so be- 
have among his fellows as to become 
offensive or corrupting, morally, the natural 
punishment, after he is shown the nature 
and effect of his offense, is to deprive him 
of the privilege of associating with his play- 
mates for a time limited by his, the pupil's, 
future behavior. The minimum time for 

191 



Education — The Old and the New 

such deprivation of privileges should always 
be mentioned with the provision that 
his future conduct and the attitude which 
he exhibits shall determine how long the 
time may be extended beyond the mini- 
mum limit. One very important feature of 
carrying out this method of punishment 
is to wait for the pupil to come to the 
teacher and make his voluntary confes- 
sion. Coaxing a child into confessing 
a fault with promise of amendment of 
conduct seldom effects a change for the 
better, but if he knows that he must con- 
tinue his abstinence from the enjoyment of 
the society of others until he is willing to 
comply with the terms required, he does 
more effective thinking than all the coax- 
ing or lecturing could induce him to do. 
The best way is to seem not to notice his 
continuing under punishment at all, until 
he appears at the desk and makes his con- 

192 



Education — The Old and the New 

fession. At the opening of the next ses- 
sion of school after his confession, with 
the offending pupil present, the teacher 
should make a statement of the simple 
facts of his confession and of his promises 
of amendment of conduct, that all may 
understand upon what terms he has been 
released ; the entire transaction being given 
from first to last in such a manner that 
the best moral effect may be produced 
upon the school. 

It may be possible that some objection 
would be raised against such a mode 
of punishment being administered. All 
teachers of much experience, have heard 
that "My boy never does nothin' wrong," 
and are prepared for objections. The 
Irish mother did not object to having 
her child whipped, but, in her own dialect, 
she forcibly expressed her sentiments thus : 

"Oi shouldn't 'av moinded it, sor, at all, 

193 



Education — The Old and the New 

at all, sor, if ye had bate him wid a shtick 
for Oi bates him mesel', sor, but Oi can't 
have him do the humbling wor-r-k oi 
swaping at all, sor. Now ye understand 
thot, don't ye, sor?" 

Insubordination, open rebelHon, or fla- 
grant violation of decency, demand more 
stringent methods of treatment. They 
demand something more effective than 
suspension too. Of course, suspension 
is the only method available where 
corporal punishment has been abolished. 
The wiser plan is to permit corporal pimish- 
ment under carefully guarded restrictions. 
Then the slum boy will not be likely to 
say to the principal as some have said, 
"I'll do as I like and you dassn't tech me." 

From Page's ''Theory and Practice of 
Teaching" the following is just as applica- 
ble now as it was when it was written : 

"Perhaps no language of mine can so 

194 



Education — The Old and the New 

well represent the concurrence of circum- 
stances making corporal punishment nec- 
essary to our schools as it has been done 
by the Hon. Horace Mann in his lectures on 
school punishments." 

" 'The first point," says he, * 'which I 
shall consider is, whether corporal punish- 
ment is ever necessary in our schools. 

" 'As preliminary to a decision of this 
question, let us take a brief survey of the 
facts. 

" 'We have in this commonwealth, (Mas- 
sachusetts,) above one hundred and ninety 
two thousand children between the ages 
of four and sixteen years. 

" 'All of that portion of these children 
are not only legally entitled to attend our 
pubHc schools, but it is our great desire 
to increase that attendance, and he who 
increases it is regarded as a reformer. 
All of that portion of these children who 

195 



Education — The Old and the New 

attend school, enter from different house- 
holds, where the widest diversity of parent- 
al and domestic influence prevails, the 
children enter the schoolroom, where there 
must be comparative uniformity. At 
home some of these children have been 
indulged in every wish, flattered and 
smiled upon for the energies of their low 
propensities, and even their freaks and 
whims enacted into household laws. Some 
have been so rigorously debarred from 
every innocent amusement and indulgence, 
that they have opened for themselves a 
way to gratification through artifice and 
treachery and falsehood. Others from 
vicious parental example, and the cor- 
rupting influence of vile associates, have 
been trained to bad habits and contami- 
nated with vicious principles ever since 
they were born; some being taught that 
honor consists in whipping a boy larger 

196 



Education — The Old and the New 

than themselves; while others, that the 
chief end of man is to own a box that 
cannot be opened and to get enough money 
to fill it; and others again have been 
taught upon their father's knee to shape 
their young Hps to the utterance of oaths 
and blasphemy. Now all these disposi- 
tions which do not conflict with right more 
than they do with each other, as soon as 
they cross the threshold of the school- 
room, from the different worlds, as it were* 
of homes, must be made to aim at the 
same results. In addition to these arti- 
ficial varieties, there are natural differences 
of temperament and disposition. 

" 'Again : there are about three thousand 
pubHc schools in the State, in which are 
employed in the course of the year about 
five thousand different persons as teachers, 
including both males and females. Ex- 
cepting a very few cases, these five thous 

197 



Education — The Old and the New 

and persons have had no special prep- 
aration or training for their employment, 
and many of them are young and without 
experience. These five thousand teachers 
then, so many of whom are unprepared, 
are to be placed in authority over one 
hundred and ninety two thousand children, 
so many of whom have been perverted. 
Without passing through any transition 
for improvement these parties meet each 
other in the schoolroom, where mutiny and 
insubordination and disobedience are to 
be repressed, order maintained, knowledge 
acquired. He, therefore, who denies the 
necessity of resorting to punishment in 
our schools, — and to corporal punishment, 
too, — virtually affirms two things, — first 
that this great number of children, scooped 
up from all places, taken at all ages and 
conditions, can be deterred from the wrong 
and attracted to the right without punish- 

198 



Education — The Old and the New 

ment; and, secondly, he asserts that the 
five thousand persons whom the districts 
employ to keep their respective schools, are 
now and in the present condition of things, 
able to accomphsh so glorious a work. 
Neither of these propositions am I, at pres- 
ent, prepared to admit . If there are individ- 
uals — and we know there are such — ^so 
singularly gifted with talent, resources, and 
with the divine principle of love, that they 
can win the affection, and, by controlHng 
the heart, can control the conduct of 
the children who for years have been 
addicted to lie, to swear, to steal, to cheat, 
to fight, still I do not believe there are now 
five thousand such individuals in the 
State whose heavenly services can be 
obtained for this transforming work. And 
it is useless or worse than useless to say 
that such or such a thing can be done, 
and done immediately without pointing 

199 
11 



Education — The Old and the New 

out the agents by whom it can be done. 
One who affirms that a thing can be done, 
without reference to the persons who can 
do it, must be thinking of miracles. If 
the position were that the children may 
be so educated from birth, and teachers 
may be so trained for their calling as to 
supercede the necessity of corporal punish- 
ment, except in cases decidedly monstrous, 
then I would have no doubt of its truth; 
but such a position must have reference 
to some future period which we should 
strive to hasten, but ought not to antici- 
pate." 

Our legislators have attached penalties 
to laws enacted to preserve order and to 
prevent injustice and immorality. These 
laws are supposed to be for the government 
of the adult population; and yet those 
for school government propose to pro- 
hibit the penalty which is most effective 

200 



Education — The Old and the New 

in preventing violations even of the moral 
law; because, as they contend, children 
can be governed, in all cases, by love. 
Why not control adults in the same way? 
It may be said that pupils are young and 
unsophisticated. Young? Yes, but, un- 
fortunately, often trained in vice by their 
street education until inhibition by heroic 
treatment becomes the only effective 
remedy by which to secure obedience. 

As to suspension — ^two difficulties he 
in the way of making it effective : 

First ; the school officers to whom a case 
is referred are frequently inclined to hear 
but one side, the boy's side of the case, 
and to reinstate him. He then becomes 
a leader of mutiny, because he is the hero 
of the event, claiming to have outwitted 
the teacher. Having been once victorious, 
he is ready for any sort of a lark just for 
the fun of the thing. 

201 



Education — The Old and the New 

Secondly; if, on the other hand, the 
teacher is sustained and expulsion is the 
decision, the expelled pupil loses the 
education which he so much needs; unless, 
however, it is also provided that expelled 
pupils must be sent to reform school. In 
the administration of the suspension and 
expulsion method, this seems to be the 
only rational manner of the final dispo- 
sition of such cases. 

Corporal punishment by the use of the 
rod for every trivial offense, as it was 
practiced a hundred years ago, should 
never be permitted; but when gross 
offenses occur which gentle means have 
failed to suppress, then, and only then, 
should it be administered. The writer 
limited its application to the two offenses : 
(0 profanity or obscenity, when other 
means failed; and (2), to wilful disobe- 
dience. 

202 



Education — The Old and the New 

The moral effect upon a school is better 
conserved when the pupils know that there 
is a limit beyond which they cannot pass 
with impunity. It is with them as it is with 
adults in a community; there are evilly 
disposed individuals who, if held in check 
by fear of the consequences of their evil 
doings, make fairly good, well-behaved 
members of the body politic. The school 
is but a political body in miniature, and 
should be treated as such. 

The good citizen can truly and honestly 
say that laws with penalties attached do 
not affect him because he has no tempta- 
tion to violate them. The dishonest man 
will most probably say the same, but 
such laws are necessary nevertheless. 

In this discussion something may be 
said of law abiding men who violate the 
moral law, when by a transaction in busi- 
ness, they deliberately plan to evade, and 

203 



Education — The Old and the New 

do evade statute law. Such conduct is 
certainly wrong and no censure is too 
severe against it. The teacher will find 
by experience that such miniature men 
are very often found among schoolboys. It 
is a most disagreeable part of the teacher's 
duty to deal with such cases. The pupil 
who is constantly endeavoring to annoy 
the teacher by some prank which is not 
"against the rules" gives the teacher one 
of the hardest problems to be met and 
solved in school. That such a pupil 
should not be able to justify himself by 
the plea that nothing had been said for- 
bidding the conduct of which he had been 
guilty, it sometimes becomes necessary 
to add a rule covering such cases, so as to 
be prepared for a repetition of the offense. 
This is burdensome both to the teacher 
and to the well disposed pupils of the 
school. It is better, however, that it 

204 



Education — The Old and the New 

should be done and done promptly, too. 

In one case, and in one only, in the 
entire course of the experience of the 
writer, he made a rule which was specially 
applied to but one pupil in the school : 

Complaints had come to him frequently 
of petty thefts perpetrated in the fifth 
grade. The accusations were against the 
same individual every time. When con- 
fronted by the accuser, he would first 
deny the charge. After seeing the array 
of witnesses, and after finding the property 
upon his person, he would make the plea 
that he had ''found it." The rule made 
was that he was not pennitted to take for 
his own, anything that he might find until 
the teacher or the principal should first 
endeavor to find the owner. The probable 
penalty for the violation of this rule was 
given in this peculiar case, and, but a 
few days afterward, was duly administered. 

20^ 



Education — The Old and the New 

This was not a case of "Spare the rod and 
and spoil the child," by any means. It 
is sufficient to add that the castigation 
which he received put a quietus upon the 
petty thieving, and certainly did it with- 
out injury to the boy in any respect. 

It is generally conceded that the boys 
of the present period, almost universally, 
lack reverence for God, and show little 
respect for parents; nor, indeed, for any 
authority, except perhaps for written law 
with the penalty attached. Many of 
them, unfortunately, show no respect for 
law except that which comes from fear 
of detection. Such boys seem to regard 
a police officer as an enemy, and use the 
name, 'Cop," derisively, in speaking of 
him, and would, if they dared use it in 
speaking to him. Whether or not the 
abolition of corporal punishment has had 
any influence in forming the character 

206 



Education — The Old and the New 

of such boys may not be fully known, but 
judging from their usual conduct they are 
kept in such order as they exhibit at their 
best, by fear. It is not necessary to 
punish much however, but to punish 
judiciously. In the writer's experience he 
was not compelled to whip an average of 
one boy each year. 

Should a schoolgirl who reads this 
chapter on punishments feel that her sex 
has been slighted because boys have been 
mentioned so frequently and girls not 
mentioned, the author begs leave to state 
that he never whipped a girl in all his 
fifty-four years' experience. Such a school- 
girl will surely be satisfied with this 
apology for not mentioning her kind. 

It is no pleasure to show that such a 
state of human society exists as has been 
claimed in this discussion, but it does 
exist nevertheless, and the exigencies of 

207 



Education — The Old and the New 

the case must be carefully studied and 
must be as carefully met by some kind of 
treatment. Moral suasion should be tried 
first, of course, but should this fail, under 
the proposed plan of not permitting 
corporal punishment, nothing is left but 
to suspend the rebellious, disobedient, 
or obscene and profane pupil. 

By personal experience as a teacher in 
the City of New York, the writer has had 
such ample proof of the character of a 
large number of the scholastic population 
of that city that he believes that it is 
even now a mistake to undertake to manage 
the city schools without, in some cases, 
resorting to corporal punishment. 

In conclusion, it may be advised that 
teachers should so manage as to avoid 
the occurrence of anything requiring either 
corporal punishment or its substitute, sus- 
pension. This plan can be promoted by the 

208 



Education — The Old and the New 

teacher's observance of the following 
rules : 

1. Make but few rules for the govern- 
ment of the school and only those which 
may become absolutely necessary. 

2. Make these rules only when a case 
occurs requiring their enactment. 

3. Avoid attaching penalties to rules. 
I^eave yourself free to choose penalties 
when they are required. 

4. Make no threats. 

5. Be careful to use no language in 
addressing a pupil but such as you would 
regard courteous if addressed to your- 
self. 

6. Never abuse your power over your 
pupils. Use even your legal power spar- 
ingly. Abuse weakens it. 

7. Do as you would be done by. 

One rule for the government of the pupils 
may be made with propriety at the open- 

209 



Education — The Old and the New 

ing of school on the first day of the teacher's 
acquaintance with her pupils, and it is 
really the best policy that it should be 
done. It is this: DO RIGHT. 



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CHAPTER XXI. 



MoRAi. Training. The Old. Some 

FaUIvTS. 

By the term "Old" used here it is not 
intended to include the Renaissance nor 
even a few centuries later, as the com- 
parison of those ancient days with present 
methods of training may not be profitable. 

Many faults certainly existed in the 
methods of giving instruction in morality 
as practiced a century ago, and even the 
teachings of half a century ago, hence they 
deserve mention. 

One hundred years ago the Bible was 
the book from which reading was taught. 
It must have been a very difficult task 
for the child who had learned to read only 
the few simple sentences in the primer and 
the spelling book to read the genealogies 

213 



Education — The Old and the New 

or about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, 
or, as the stuttering boy who had been 
instructed privately by a mischievous 
schoolmate to read the names, "Sh-sh- 
sh-shadrach, M-um-um-um-me-shach and 
To - bed - we - go . " Many amusing tricks 
have been related about conning over the 
lessons of the Bible in the "loud schools" 
where the mischievous boy, under pretense 
of diligent application, was merely re- 
peating some travesty on the Bible to 
amuse those nearest him. Such irrever- 
ence was certainly reprehensible, but the 
"Master" usually punished the laughing 
victims instead of the real offender. So 
the affair was disposed of after the faulty 
manner of the "Good Old Times." 

In some of the states it is still lawful 
to read the Bible in the public schools, 
''provided, however, that the aforesaid 
reading shall be without comment." 

214 



Education — The Old and the New 

Later when Sunday schools were organ- 
ized, the teacher in the common schools 
was emboldened to ask questions and to 
give some instruction as to the meaning 
of the passages read. This, however, 
was after the Bible had ceased to be used 
for the purpose of teaching reading, and 
after the adoption of other readers, graded, 
or intended to be graded, to suit the 
abihty of the child. ''The Testament 
Class" was still heard to read once a day, 
however, and was made up of the three 
highest grades in the school, if they could 
be called grades in an ungraded school. 
Their proficiency in reading was about 
the same that we find now in the seventh, 
eighth and ninth grades of the grammar 
school. This method was still in vogue 
as late in history as the writer's own 
common school experience. So long as 
the Scripture reading was confined to 

215 



Education — The Old and the New 

the New Testament it seems to have served 
a good purpose. Indiscriminate selections 
from the Old Testament were not suitable 
for the common schools, for various reasons, 
nor were such used during this period. 

Another fault of the Old regime for 
teaching morality was the code written 
out by the school committee to be read 
by the "Master" every morning at the 
opening of school. The plan may have 
had some moral effect, however. Perhaps 
it may have had a deterrent influence 
upon some pupils, but when child study 
revealed the psychological principle of 
suggestion as an incentive to wrong-doing 
the formal code was discontinued. 

As to the text found in the school 
readers of the last half of the nineteenth 
century, or, at least, the greater part of 
this period, a whole chapter is insufficient 
to do it justice. 

216 



CHAPTER XXII. 



Moral Training. Some of the Old 
Which Should Have Been Retained 
IN THE New. The Character of Text 
Books on Reading. 

Doubtless many old people overesti- 
mate the ''Good Old Times" of their 
childhood and youth, and the expression, 
"When I was a boy," may have been used 
often to introduce an overdrawn picture of 
social life in the past, but the writer, 
while admitting his age to be such that 
he may be classed among old men, has 
been careful to make statements not 
wholly based upon his memory, having 
procured school readers of the same kind 
he himself used sixty-five to seventy years 
ago. 

219 
12 



Education — The Old and the New 

At that time the text book contained 
well written articles against intemperance 
and war, and much of the subject matter 
favored Christianity and so led the child 
to discriminate between right and wrong, 
even should the teacher be not inclined 
to comment upon the reading. 

The readers to which reference has been 
made and which the writer used were 
the McGuffey's Series. 

As a sample of their contents, the Third 
and the Fourth Readers only are here 
commented upon, these being of the 
grade used in the classes composed of 
children whose age and literary capability 
made it the most important period for 
the proper development of moral character. 

Three selections from the Bible found 
in the Third Reader are, Jfirst, "Extracts 
from the Sermon on the Mount," bearing 
directly upon the ethical department of 

220 



Education — The Old and the New 

education; second, ''Solomon's Wise 
Choice," an excellent lesson to direct a laud- 
able ambition ; and third, "The Goodness of 
God," taken from the Psalms, an excellent 
teaching in the much needed principle 
of reverence. 

The pubhsher makes this statement 
in his preface to the Fourth Reader : 

"From no source has the author drawn 
more copiously than from the sacred 
Scriptures. For this certainly he appre- 
hends no censure. In a Christian country 
that man is to be pitied, who, at this day, 
can honestly object to imbuing the mind 
of youth with the language and spirit 
of the word of God. Among the selec- 
tions from the Bible are some elegant 
specimens of sacred poetry, as arranged 
by Bishop Jebb and Dr. Coit." 

Eleven selections from the Bible are 
found in this reader of the same general 

221 



Education — The Old and the New 

character as those found in the Third 
Reader, besides the sacred poetry to 
which reference is made in the preface. 
From the Third Reader, the following 
truism is of so great value in the formative 
period of youth that its excellence can 
hardly be overstated: 

"If all our hopes and all our fears 

Were prisoned in Hfe's narrow bound; 

If travellers through this vale of tears, 
We saw no better world beyond : 

Oh what could check the rising sigh? 

What earthly thing could pleasure give? 
Oh, who would venture then to die? 

Oh, who could then endure to Hve?" 

From a lesson entitled "Short Sentences" 
the following quotation shows their general 
character : 

"If you forget God when you are young, 
God may forget you when you are old." 

222 



Education — The Old and the New 

"It will cost something to be religious; 
it will cost more not to be so." 

"We may expect God's protection, so 
long as we live in God's bounds.'' 

"There are no principles but those of 
religion, to be depended on in cases of 
real distress; and these are able to encount- 
er the worst emergencies, and to bear us 
up under all the changes and chances to 
which our lives are subject." 

A lesson on "The Character of Jesus 
Christ" closes as follows: 

"These were the circumstances, which 
gave our blessed Lord the authority with 
which he spake. No wonder then that the 
people were astonished at his doctrines." 

"The Golden Rule," is the title of a 
most pathetic story of a little girl's temp- 
tation to be dishonest. These passages 
are near the close of the lesson : 

" 'No, sir, I thank you,' said she; 'I 

223 



Education — The Old and the New 

do not want to be paid for doing right; 
I only wish you would not think me 
dishonest, for, indeed, it was a sore temp- 
tation.' The heart of the selfish man 
was touched. 'There be things which 
are little upon the earth, but they are 
exceeding wise/ murmured he, and entered 
his house a sadder, and, it is to be hoped, 
abetter man." 

Another story, "The Noblest Revenge," 
or the appHcation of the Christian principle 
of returning good for evil, is full of interest 
to the child, and shows how obedience to 
this Christian injunction can be made 
practical. 

A few lines from "Consolation of Re- 
ligion to the Poor," are quoted to show 
the general trend of its teaching : 
"There is a mourner and her heart is 
broken ; 

Her only hope is in the sacred token 

224 



Education — The Old and the New 

Of peaceful happiness when Hfe is o'er. 
She asks not wealth, nor pleasure, begs 

no more 
Than Heaven's delightful volume, and the 

sight 
Of her Redeemer. Skeptics, would you 

pour 
Your blasting vials upon her head, and 

blight 
Sharon's sweet rose, that blooms and 

charms her being's night?" 
These quotations show something of 
the character of the moral training given 
by the Old method. There are about a 
dozen other lessons in this Fourth Reader 
of a similar character. Sixty -three lessons 
of a religious, hence an ethical character, 
suited especially for a higher grade of 
pupils, are found in the Fourth Reader. 
They are so excellent in their efficiency 
when used by the conscientious teacher 

225 



Education — The Old and the New 

that the writer finds it difficult to refrain 
from quoting further. He knows this, 
however, that they have exerted a con- 
tinual influence upon him, through, what 
seems to him, a long and eventful life. 



226 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



MoRAi. Training. The New. The Fairy 
Story. The School IvIbrary. 

The claim that the very best teachers 
should be selected for the primary grades 
is most reasonable, certainly, but it is 
just as wise to select the best possible 
matter to be taught in the beginning of 
school life. Hence much care should be 
exercised in planning this part of the 
school course. 

The method now prevalent is to begin 
with the marvelous in the story. The 
primitive method of telling the child 
stories of goblins, ogres and their Hke, after 
the manner of savage tribes, is now prac- 
ticed. These are called ''Fairy Stories," 
though the word "Fairy" seems most 

227 



Education — The Old and the New 

inappropriate in most cases. The plan 
appears to be to interest the child regard- 
less of the consequences of the impressions 
made upon its mind. 

^sop's Fables were designed to teach 
lessons in human experience, but our 
modern authors have reached the height 
of their ambition seemingly, when they 
have excited the wonder, the astonish- 
ment of the child to the greatest possible 
extent. When aksed why such teaching 
is introduced thus early, the advocates 
of this scheme of primary education will 
reply at once that it is for psychological 
effect. It is for the purpose of cultiva- 
ting the child's imagination. The fine 
arts must be cultivated or education fails 
of its purpose, they say, and that a vivid 
imagination is absolutely necessary to 
this end. Such educators treat this sub- 
ject as if imagination was the most im- 

228 



Education — The Old and the New 

portant faculty of the human intellect; 
and that it must be built up, "made to 
order," so to speak, in early childhood 
as a necessary means to secure culture 
in the adult. Did Shakespeare, Milton, 
Sir Walter Scott, and his countryman, 
Robert Burns, receive this sort of mod- 
em training in their childhood that 
they have become so conspicuous for their 
fine poetic imagery? 

The practical psychological effect of 
this feeding the intellect with absurdities 
so far beyond the believable that the child 
with normal reasoning powers brands 
them at once as false, creates a false 
criterion from which to form a judgment 
as to the value of the subject of history, 
science, etc., in the subsequent grades of 
school life. Others whose natural pro- 
clivities tend toward selfishness are thus 
taught to regard truth as of little value, 

229 



Education — The Old and the New 

because they have received training in 
the direction of "romancing" as lying is 
politely termed among extremely fashion- 
able people. Thus is the very basis of 
good citizenship corrupted at the very 
beginning of the child's school Hfe. We 
have already enough of the Ananias and 
Sapphira class, and do not need to instruct 
our little ones in the art of lying in order 
to add to their ranks. 

As to the place of the story in our 
schools and as to the benefit to be derived 
therefrom, the writer concedes its potency 
as a factor in school work, but are there 
not enough true stories to supply the 
demand? Are there not enough incidents 
in the lives of our great men and women 
to furnish material to inspire the child 
with emulation to live a noble life, and 
so start in the school work with a high aim, 
with a patriotic purpose to live such a 

230 



Education — The Old and the New 

life that the world will be the better for 
his having lived in it? 

*Xives of great men all remind us, 

We can make our lives sublime, 
And departing leave behind us 

Footprints on the sands of time, 
Footprints that perhaps another 

Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother 

Seeing shall take heart again." 

At a more advanced stage in the pro- 
gress of the pupil, he is encouraged to 
use the school library. Now if the books 
for the pupils' use have been carefully 
selected with a view to the promotion of 
thoroughness in the subjects studied in 
the school course, this is certainly com- 
mendable. If, on the other hand, the 
library is made up of works intended to 
please a fiction-loving public, past school 

231 



Education — The Old and the New 

age, they are not suitable for a school 
library. Standard authors may have been 
selected but the mental and moral con- 
stitution of the learner may be fear- 
fully warped and distorted while in the^ 
formative period of childhood and youth 
by reading of the actions of the most 
criminal and morally corrupt whose 
characters are portrayed even by some of 
the so-called "standard authors." Blood- 
curdling narrative in fiction interests the 
young mind to such an extent that some 
sympathy is aroused in favor of even the 
hunted criminal. Familiarity with crime 
is not conducive to the standard of morality 
which produces good citizenship. 

In Pope's ''Essay on Man" the following 
passage occurs : 

"Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, 
As to be hated, needs but to be seen ; 

Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, 

232 



Education — The Old and the New 

We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 
The application of the foregoing stanza 
to the study of literature is obvious. 



233 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



The Near New. 

The true purpose of education being 
the development of all the powers that 
will contribute to the general good of 
humanity, it becomes necessary to cultivate 
them all. 

It is appropriate to quote from Mac- 
Vicar's "Principles of Education" what 
seems to the writer to be axiomatic. 

"In view of the power and ever opera- 
tive nature of the law of reflex action 
it is evident that the physical and in- 
tellectual cannot be symmetrically de- 
veloped independent of a corresponding 
and parallel development of the moral 
and spiritual natures." 

In our fathers' day the Bible was a 

234 



Education — The Old and the New 

school text book. In some places now, in 
this so-called Christian country of ours, 
the Bible is almost entirely excluded 
(entirely from one state) from our public 
schools, and in places where it is read, no 
comments are permitted, even to show 
the origin of moral law. Some men high 
in authority, even claim that morality 
should not be taught in our public schools. 
Recently an edict has gone forth, in one 
of our large cities, that the name of Christ 
shall not be mentioned in any of its 
public schools by any teacher. These 
rulings would seem to indicate that we 
are retrograding in the scale of civilization. 
This would be true if such sentiments and 
actions were sure to prevail; but we hope 
that they will not. Some one who reads 
this may say: "O, I don't believe that 
there is any danger." For the purpose of 
showing that there lurks a possible danger, 

235 
13 



Education — The Old and the New 

the following illustration is to the point: 
The writer in taking a course in the 
University Extension in New York, was 
shocked at the answer by a professor who 
was lecturing to a class of teachers of which 
he was a member. A principal of one of 
the public schools asked him how far a 
teacher is responsible for the moral train- 
ing of pupils. The answer was given in 
a most emphatic manner: 

"The teacher is in no way responsible 
for the pupil's moral training. It is none 
of his business. I despise this preaching 
morahty to pupils." He was then asked 
if incidents might not occur in the school 
when it would become necessary and 
hence incumbent upon the teacher to 
give instructions in morality. "No!" was 
the reply, "Never! It is impossible that 
an3rthing could occur to call for moral 
instruction." 

236 



Education — The Old and the New 

It is fortunate, however, that laws have 
not been enacted to prevent teaching mor- 
ahty in our pubHc schools except indirect- 
ly by the exclusion of the Bible as has 
already been stated. 

Notwithstanding this eminent professor's 
answer to the last question given in the 
incident related, it is gratifying to be able 
to quote a better authority on the other 
side of the question. This is from a paper 
by Mr. Hamilton in the report of the N. E. 
A. for 1907. It is as follows: 

"Exercise is the universal law of develop- 
ment. On the physical side it gives 
strength of muscle; on the mental side, 
strength of mind; on the moral side, 
strength of character. Every day affords 
numerous opportimities for the exercise of 
this law; occasions when the pupil may 
be honest or dishonest, truthful or false, 
generous or selfish, candid or deceitful, 

237 



Education — The Old and the New 

morally courageous or cowardly, and the 
teacher who would do the most for the 
future citizenship of the nation should 
not permit these opportunities to pass 
without inducing the child to exercise 
these so-called civic virtues." 

The people are taxed for the support 
of the public schools with the plea that 
it is more economical thus to prevent, than 
to punish crime. While it is admitted 
that general literature with its accompany- 
ing culture tends to elevate above crimi- 
nal proclivity, we have reason to believe 
that if moral instruction was entirely 
excluded crime would very perceptibly 
increase. As the matter now stands, 
culprits whose literary attainments are 
of no mean character are frequently 
brought before the criminal courts, 
although the schools have afforded some 
opportunity for their moral training. 

238 



Education — The Old and the New 

From a paper contributed by W. E. 
Chancellor, Report of N. E. A., 1907, 
a very concise description of the criminal 
is given : 

"The criminal is simply the man who is 
intelligent and efficient without being 
wholly moral. The more his education 
in intelHgence and efficiency is dispro- 
portioned to his education in morality, 
the worse for himself and the world." 

It is not what a man knows but what 
he is, that determines his character. 

In answer to the usual objection to 
giving moral instruction — ^the lack of time 
— it may be stated that much of the time 
used under the present curricula is devoted 
to subjects of doubtful value to the up- 
building of a better civilization. Of what 
practical use are the details of bloody 
battles in the study of history? Does a 
knowledge of these tragedies, the graphic 

239 



Education — The Old and the New 

description of wholesale murder, help 
build up noble character? 

It is true that teachers as individuals 
have in the past given moral instruction 
notwithstanding the many discourage- 
ments from those calling themselves edu- 
cators; and though this may have been 
done, because incidents of the school work 
have demanded it, nevertheless direct moral 
instruction is needed. 

It may be pardonable to add some 
thoughts from * 'School Management," by 
Emerson A. White, lyl^. D. Writing on 
obedience, he says: 

"The fact remains that the two essential 
principles of obedience are love of God 
and love to man; and all duty flows from 
this dual source. Obedience is the ful- 
fiUing of the law, and that law is love." 

Is there in all our country a church or 
a member of any religious organization 

240 



Education — The Old and the New 

who could object to such teaching, even 
if it is based upon ethics taught in the Bible ? 
Then why exclude Bible teaching when 
bringing it to bear as authority for moral 
training? As a corps of truly patriotic 
educators, teachers should regard them- 
selves very fortunate in having such 
eminent writers supporting and encourag- 
ing them in all right doing. 

The following resolutions passed by the 
N. E. A. in 1908 are also very encouraging: 

"We earnestly recommend to boards of 
education, principals and teachers, the 
continuous training of pupils in morals and 
in business and professional ethics, to the 
end that the coming generation of men 
of affairs may have a well-developed ab- 
horrence of imfair dealing and discrimi- 
nation." 

The same body also expressed the follow- 
ing at the 1908 meeting: ''The National 

241 



Education — The Old and the New 

Education Association wishes to record its 
approval of the increased appreciation 
among educators of the fact that the 
building of character is the real aim of 
the schools. 

"We hope for such a change of pubHc 
sentiment as will permit and encourage 
the reading and study of the English 
Bible. 

"The highest ethical standard of ethical 
conduct and speech should be insisted on 
among teachers. ' ' 

Later still, Nov., 191 t, Gov. Osborn of 
Michigan, in addressing the State Teachers' 
Association said to the eight thousand 
teachers assembled before him : 

"I come as the governor of the state, 
representing 3,000,000 people, to thank 
the most important body of workers that 
we have for what they have done. 

"Some things you have done should 



Education — The Old and the New 

challenge the admiration of all the civil- 
ized world, and the chief among them is 
the adoption of the resolution that the 
Bible should be used as a text book in 
the schools. 

*'A11 that is best in our civiUzation is 
based upon the truths taught in the 
Bible, and if we are happier as a people 
and better as a nation, if we have ac- 
complished anything that has lifted us 
above the level of the rest of mankind we 
owe it to what we have obtained from that 
inspired work. You cannot install the 
Bible as a text book in the schools without 
getting some good from it, and it is worth 
the trouble of your coming here to this 
convention just to place yourselves on 
record as favoring restoring the Bible and 
the Lord's Prayer to everyday use in the 
schools." 

Encouraging as it is to have this im- 

243 



Education — The Old and the New 

portant feature of character building ad- 
vised from such an influential source, laws 
upon our statute books are necessary to 
give effect to these good resolutions. 

The writer has quoted thus freely from 
our best educators that teachers may be 
encouraged to press forward in the course 
of giving their pupils that moral education 
which so well accords with the conscience 
of the Christian teacher. It gives moral 
support to teachers to know that a ma- 
jority of our best citizens are in sym- 
pathy with them. Should pecuniary re- 
ward fail, a most sure and enduring re- 
ward awaits faithfulness in this depart- 
ment of school responsibility. 

All true teachers will constantly keep in 
mind one most important rule of conduct 
on their part : 

Do unto the child as you would that 
the child should do unto you were it 

244 



Education — The Old and the New 

possible for you to exchange places. 

Both teachers and school officers should 
remember that the school is no place for 
a man without principle. 

In a sense, taxation without returning 
an equivalent is unjust. Hence all should 
be done that can be done to promote 
good citizenship and a consequent decrease 
in crime. Nothing short of this is just 
to the taxpayer. Besides these reasons 
there is another still greater, the promo- 
tion of the welfare of the pupil as an 
individual. 

"Good Citizenship" by Julia Richman, 
District Superintendent of PubHc Schools 
for the City of New York and Isabel 
Richman Wallach, author of ** First Book 
in Enghsh for Foreigners," etc., pubHshed 
by the American Book Co., supphes a 
much needed want in our educational 
system. Civics is a part of the curricula 

245 



Education — The Old and the New 

in the most of our public schools, but it 
is found in the high school only, while it is 
a lamentable fact that but a small per- 
centage of the children ever advance so 
far as the high school in their educational 
course. It is equally important to all 
that a practical knowledge of the duties 
of citizenship should be taught m some 
form to every pupil in our pubHc schools. 
"A knowledge of things close at hand 
should be acquired first, and such knowl- 
edge should be made to include the 
personal relations of the child to the 
law." 

This little book is written in language 
comprehensible to a child in the fourth 
grade as our curricula are usually arranged, 
but as a supplementary reader is adapted 
to any grade above this; or, in a teacher's 
hands, to any of the lower grades. It is 
more especially adapted to city schools 

246 




ELIZABETH HASTINGS, 

Granddaughter of the Author. 

She has passed the kindergarten and on up to the 
second grade. She has not been assigned "home 
work" yet except to help her mother about house- 
work which exercise is administered in moderation, 
producing excellent results so far 



Education — The Old and the New 

but may be used to great advantage in 
all our elementary schools. Teachers will 
do well to give it their careful considera- 
tion. 



249 



CHAPTER XXV. 



Teachers' Training SchooIvS. Uniform- 
ity OF QUAIvlFlCATlONS. 

Those institutions commonly called 
"normal schools" have accomplished more 
for the education of the masses than 
almost all other agencies combined. Their 
influence for good can hardly be over- 
estimated; and yet it is fair to presume 
that there is still room for further im- 
provement. We quote from an address 
found in the N. E. A. Reports for 1907, 
some prospective methods of education : 

"I apprehend that in the next period 
of formal education there will be such 
internal changes in our courses of study 
as to make their ancestry almost unrecog- 
nizable. I anticipate this both because 

250 



Education — The Old and the New 

of the as yet unspent force of psychology 
and sociology. 

"The present scheme of one teacher 
for forty or fifty children for five hours 
a day, for five days in the week, and forty 
weeks in the year, with incidental home 
lessons to be taught by the parents will 
go by the board. Night work for pupils 
should be unknown. Individuals may 
benefit for a time; but the race never, 
the community never, the next generation 
never." 

Much more might be said of present 
injurious school methods, but the training 
school will doubtless attend to these 
matters; and properly trained teachers 
can and will exert their influence for good 
among school officers until progress will 
not only be possible but will actually be 
accomplished through their agency. 

It is well that student teachers of the 

251 



Education — The Old and the New 

normal school teach real classes under 
the supervision of competent instructors, 
and that they be critiziced, (privately,) 
on their work; and, though no allusions 
to personal defects in teaching should be 
made by their associates, free discussions 
should be encouraged on the topics pre- 
sented in the lectures given. Thus will 
the ideas and methods discussed be of 
much greater value than they could be 
from mere formal lecturing. 

In imparting instruction to teachers 
under training, whether by lecture or 
otherwise, more care should be exercised 
in the discrimination of methods recom- 
mended for schools where text books are 
not furnished by the public nor by the 
parents, and those which are well sup- 
plied with them. Some teachers with 
certificates of graduation from some of 
our normal schools keep their pupils 

252 



Education — The Old and the New 

of the first, second and third grades 
copying from the blackboard the greater 
part of the time. Now the blackboard, 
though an indispensable aid to the teacher, 
like other good things, may by excessive 
use become injurious. A child may be 
thirty or forty feet from the board, though 
ten feet would be far enough away to 
cause injury to the eyes, and can still 
see to copy, but it should be remembered 
that it does the work differently from the 
adult. Should the teacher copy the 
exercises, she would probably read an 
entire sentence and copy it before looking 
at the board again; or she would read 
the number 7,568,941 and copy it without 
raising her eyes to the board. Not so 
with the little one. It copies one 
figure or letter, or, at most, the next 
word, and so on through the tedious 
process. At each change from the read- 

253 
14 



Education — The Old and the New 

ing to the writing, a change must take 
place in the eye. The deHcate muscles 
controlling the lens and the pupil of the 
eye must be contracted and relaxed. 
Hence it is not wonderful that we are 
having so many children in school who 
wear glasses. It is rather wonderful that 
the eyes of a greater number are not 
injured. When necessity compels the 
teacher to resort to this copying method, 
it may be used if care is taken to seat the 
children as near the blackboard as the 
arrangement of seats will permit; but 
when an abundant supply of suitable 
exercises for number work, etc., can be 
found in the text books, it is time wasted, 
and worse than wasted by both teacher 
and pupils to do this drudgery ; especially 
is this the case when the teacher has the 
habit of keeping her back to the school 
while placing the work upon the board. 

254 




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Education — The Old and the New 

It may be urged that she should not be 
confined to the book. True; but if it 
is found that some individual pupil needs 
a larger number of exercises than the 
text book supplies, or that the book 
is otherwise deficient, it is much better 
to place the added work upon paper or 
upon pieces of card board and allow the 
pupil to use these nearer to the eye, re- 
serving board room for use during reci- 
tation. Pupils are usually fond of recita- 
tion board work. Besides it is one of 
the very best methods for testing the pupil 
as to his real knowledge of the subject 
under consideration. 



25T 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



Thoroughness. Motives of Applicants 
FOR A Teacher's Course. 

Teachers should be trained to remember 
that the object of the recitation is to 
ascertain what the pupil really knows 
about the subject under discussion so 
that all deficiencies may be supplied by 
the instructor. Therefore that the testing 
should always be thorough. This thorough- 
ness is not necessarily severity of discipline. 
Exactness in class discipline kindly ad- 
ministered is certain to command the 
respect of the class and secures the best 
possible progress in a given study. As 
an important part in the training of 
teachers this principle should be so im- 
pressed that no one receiving a certificate 

258 



Education — The Old and the New 

of graduation would fail to put it into 
practice. 

More care should be exercised in grant- 
ing diplomas, or certificates of graduation. 
It is found occasionally that a graduate 
has failed to become thoroughly acquainted 
with the elementary branches needed in 
the primary department of our common 
schools. The writer remembers one of 
this class of graduates whose Hcense to 
teach was issued upon the showing of a 
diploma from a normal school. This 
young lady had become alarmed because 
she had learned that the newly elected 
lady school commissioner for the county 
where she taught was intending to be 
more careful in issuing hcenses than her 
predecessor had been and that all teachers 
were to be examined as to qualification. 
She decided to prepare for the ordeal 
and so applied to the writer who became 

259 



Education — The Old and the New 

her tutor. She proved to be deficient 
even in the fundamental operations of 
arithmetic; and when asked how it could 
be possible for her to pass in arithmetic 
and so secure her diploma, she said that 
it was probably because the questions 
propounded to her were those to which 
she happened to remember the correct 
answers. She proved to be so intelligent 
that she made excellent progress for a 
time but surprised her instructor one day 
by telling him that she would pay for 
instruction up to date as she had been 
able to get a "pull" from the state capital 
for a state certificate. Her education 
was then and there completed and she 
felt herself forever free from undergoing 
the ordeal of an examination. 

It has been said that 'Toets are born, 
not made." This perhaps is just as true 
of the teacher. It may prove upon in- 

260 



Education — The Old and the New 

vestigation and the careful examination 
of the applicant for a normal school course 
that he or she may have no natural 
qualifications whatever for a teacher. 
What should be done in such a case? The 
problem, though a difficult one, should 
not be ignored. There are already more 
than enough ineffective teachers in the 
profession. 

The candidate may intend to make 
teaching a mere * 'stepping stone" into 
some other profession. He may need 
pecuniary support while preparing to 
enter the profession of law or medicine. 
Such teachers are not needed and should 
not attempt to fill this most responsible 
of all vocations when thus making it the 
means of acquiring the privilege of step- 
ping into another profession. Whatever 
may be the applicant's attitude as to 
future plans, the one thing needful is that 

2.61 



Education — The Old and the New 

the object should be wholly a desire to 
become one of the most useful factors in 
the promotion of good for the human 
race. 

At the very beginning of his first 
chapter on ''Theory and Practice of Teach- 
ing," Page says: 

"Perhaps the very first question that 
the honest individual will ask himself, as 
he proposes to assume the teacher's office, 
or to enter upon a preparation for it will 
be "What manner of spirit am I of?' No 
question can be more important. I would 
by no means undervalue that degree of 
natural talent — of mental power, which 
all consider so desirable in the teacher's 
office. But the true spirit of the teacher 
— a spirit that seeks not only pecimiary 
emoluments but desires to be in the 
highest degree useful to those who are 
to be taught; a spirit that elevates above 

262 



Education — The Old and the New 

everything else the natural capabilities 
of the human soul, and that trembles 
under the responsibility of attempting 
to be its educator; a spirit that looks 
upon gold as the contemptible dross of 
earth, when compared with that imperish- 
able gem which is to be polished and 
brought out into Heaven's light to shine 
forever; a spirit that earnestly inquires 
what is right; a spirit that scorns all re- 
wards of earth, and seeks the highest of 
all rewards, an approving conscience and 
an approving God; a spirit that can 
recognize and reverence the handiwork of 
God in every child, and burns with the 
desire to be instrumental in training it 
to the highest attainment of which it is 
capable — such a spirit is the first thing to 
be sought by the teacher, and without it 
the highest talent cannot make him 
truly excellent in his profession." 

263 



Education — The Old and the New 

It is possible, however, that one may 
be honestly mistaken in his estimation 
of his ability and of his motives. An 
applicant of this character would be the 
most difficult of all problems of this 
kind. In other cases, especially those of 
the "stepping stone" variety, they should 
be warned at once of the inadvisability of 
treating the profession of teaching in this 
indifferent manner. 

The writer visited a school in west 
central Iowa a few years ago and, ap- 
proaching the school building, might have 
been pardoned had he supposed that he 
was about to attend a pohtical meeting, 
so loudly did the teacher vociferate in 
communicating his instructions to his 
class. 

He, the teacher, cordially welcomed his 
visitor and informed him very early in 
his conversation that he was a candidate 

264 



Education — The Old and the New 

for the office of County Superintendent of 
Public Schools. He probably thought 
that votes would be needed for his election 
and so seized time by the forelock and 
"electioneered" one who had no legal vote 
in the state at the time. He did not 
know this, however. Well, he needed the 
votes if he was to be elected but he never 
received any. Just before I left he became 
quite communicative and even confidential, 
asserting his belief that he had almost 
concluded that he had mistaken his calling, 
and that he was a born orator, and should 
be in the lecture field. To his first prop- 
osition, that he had "mistaken his call- 
ing," the writer mentally agreed most 
cordially ; to the second he could not agree. 
Soon afterward this would-be-orator left 
the profession of teaching, went to Des 
Moines, the capital, to become a profes- 
sional poHtician. He found his vocation, 

267 



Education — The Old and the New 

it seems, for he was successful in obtain- 
ing office. (How, deponent saith not.) 
He probably thus reached the goal of his 
ambition. 

While it is to be regretted that there are 
teachers who have mistaken their calling, it 
is charitable to believe in the honesty of 
their original intentions. 

Perhaps, when all aspects of the problem 
are considered, a safe solution may be 
to receive all applicants for training as 
teachers. It is unfortunate, however, 
that any should attempt to enter the pro- 
fession from unworthy motives. Yet 
such teachers may still be found teaching 
in the rural districts in many parts of 
our country. Our normal schools are 
the most potent forces, however, for the 
eradication of this evil; because, as a 
general rule, they are most likely to send 
out only those who are imbued with the 

268 



Education — The Old and the New 

true spirit of the teacher as described by 
Mr. Page in the passage herein quoted. 

''The counterfeit and the unfit cannot 
long stand in competition with the well 
qualified and the true.'' 

Doubtless the conscientious prospective 
teacher who has, through careful self- 
examination, decided to take a full course 
of training before attempting to enter 
upon a life-work imposing so much re- 
sponsibility, is most likely to decide to 
take a full course in a normal school as 
the necessary prerequisite to making 
the attempt to teach. Now, this seems 
very commendable because of the honesty 
and personal integrity of character so 
manifested by this kind of prospective 
teacher. It has been found, however, that 
training is more effective when it is taken 
after some experience. Hence it would 
seem best that a shorter course of training 

269 



Education — The Old and the New 

should be given to those wholly inex- 
perienced, to be followed by one year's 
teaching; after which the teacher's license 
might be suspended until the complete 
course is taken. This plan would seem 
to work hardship upon some teachers 
but the plan would be much better than 
the employment of those entirely without 
either experience or training. If this 
shorter course was a pre-requisite for ob- 
taining a license of even the lowest grade, 
it would certainly work to the advantage 
of the children for whom our educational 
systems are provided ; and it is certain that 
the stimulation to acquire the necessary 
training would be increased on the part 
of the normal student by such a course of 
procedure. The plan should be made 
compulsory by legislation. Teachers of 
some experience might object because 
they have never taken any training at 

270 



Education — The Old and the New 

any time. To these this law might seem 
oppressive, but it would certainly work 
no hardship to the children who are sup- 
posed to be beneficiaries of educational 
law. Then let such teachers take a rest 
if they do not care to comply with the law. 
Should they comply, however, then let 
the state pay their tuition in the normal 
school. The law should fiuther provide 
that teachers who have thus complied 
with the law for their training and after- 
ward have continued in the service as 
public school teachers for a term of years 
specified in the law, should be retired 
upon their own request upon a pension of 
half their salary at the time of their re- 
tirement, after the manner practiced at 
the present time (191 2) in the City of 
New York. 

Surely these suggestions if put into 
practice would furnish sufficient incen- 

271 



Education — The Old and the New 

tives to promote the efficiency of teachers 
beyond all precedent. All opposition to 
such an arrangement would very soon 
cease, for all would be affected alike in 
a very short time and the law would be 
just to all. 



272 




2 '5 



CHAPTER XXVII. 



Teachers Who Are of the Right Spirit 
But Too Diffident 

Those who have the ambition to become 
first-class teachers and aspire to a pro- 
fession in which the course of human life 
may be so directed for the mental, moral 
and spiritual good of not only the children 
in school but also for the betterment of the 
families from which they come, the commu- 
nities in which the school is situated, should 
not permit such a laudable ambition to fail 
of its purpose through timidity. 

This chapter is devoted to the modest 
ones who may imagine that their one 
talent, as they suppose it to be, is inade- 
quate to the fulfilment of their day-dreams 
of futiure usefulness, and whose finances are 

275 
15 



Education — The Old and the New 

too meager to fit them as their consciences 
would dictate for so responsible a position. 

Such should remember that as life is 
passing and with it golden opportunities, 
the time for action is the present. They 
should not despise the day of small things, 
should not consider their work in the 
'Xittle Red Schoolhouse" in a rural 
district too humble a beginning of a career 
which is fraught with so much of possibility. 
Small beginnings have often in the past 
resulted in great and glorious endings. 

Suppose that even the ideal of scholastic 
qualification and training has not been 
attained; it must be remembered that 
education and training must continue 
throughout the teacher's entire profes- 
sional life. Therefore, if not so well 
qualified in the beginning as might be 
best, such a teacher should determine 
to be a growing teacher, should not allow 

27§ 



Education — The Old and the New 

any Teachers' Institute which is near 
enough to permit attendance to pass 
without getting all the good obtainable 
from it ; should attend if possible a summer 
school for the training of teachers; then 
when it is rendered possible, attend some 
of the numerous normal schools which 
the states have so munificently provided. 
The expenses while attending these schools 
have in most cases been reduced to a 
minimum. 

So ultimately will the noble ideal of 
the teacher be attained. Then when gray 
hairs shall bring a crown of glory to such 
a one, she will look back over her past life 
with so much satisfaction that she would 
not exchange it for the wealth of a million- 
aire. She may be poor in this world 's goods, 
though not necessarily so, but infinitely 
rich in that which will last through all the 
cycles of eternity. 

277 



Education — The Old and the New 

It has been assumed that one so devoted 
to the welfare of others through the agency 
of such a harmonious and in every way 
complete education and development of 
all the human powers and possibiHties as 
is here assumed, would be most likely to 
end her life in poverty. This need not 
be. Even at the very lowest wages paid 
for teaching in the Httle country school- 
house something can be saved when the 
cost of hving in such localities is known 
to be so small. Then in some of the cities 
like New York where the lowest salary 
paid is six hundred dollars a year, even 
for the first year, with an opportunity 
given for increase, on merit, the prospect 
is certainly encouraging. It is only neces- 
sary to do the work immediately in hand 
well and soon the salary may be doubled 
and even trebled. 

The question may arise here as to 

278 



Education — The Old and the New 

marriage, and as to that highest of all 
responsibilities devolving upon woman — 
motherhood, true motherhood. It may 
be safely assumed as a sound proposition 
that a woman after ten or twelve years ex- 
perience in teaching is in a better condi- 
tion of life to get married than the ''sales- 
lady" who has been but a cog in the com- 
mercial machine, grinding out a mere 
pittance each week in reward for her 
monotonous drudgery. Yea, more, the 
teacher's offers in marriage are one hundred 
per cent greater in number, and, better 
still, the quality offered is almost a thousand 
per cent better than that offered to the 
commercial lady. Besides the teacher- 
mother is doubly quahfied to train the 
little ones whom God may give her, for a 
life of honor and a glorious immortality. 

Then, dear teacher, do not grow weary 
in well doing but press forward to such 

279 



Education — The Old and the New 

a brilliant mark in so noble a calling as 
this which moulds good citizenship and 
high purposes in a nation and contributes 
to the best of all else, a preparation for 
the ineffable happiness beyond mere ter- 
restrial blessings. 



280 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



The REI.ATION OF PrincipaIvS to Subor- 
dinate Teachers. 

Extremes in any direction are not us- 
ually productive of best results. The 
principal who is just "filHng" the office, but 
avoiding responsibihty as far as possible, 
calls his subordinates together once a 
week, perhaps, ostensibly to give them 
some general instructions but really to 
imload as much of his own responsibihty 
upon them as possible. The calHng to- 
gether of a corps of teachers in this man- 
ner as often as once a week is highly to 
be commended as are also the general 
instructions for the coming week, but 
when any teacher, principal, or school 
officer, endeavors to shift responsibihty 

281 



Education — The Old and the New 

or in any way to shirk duty, and con- 
tinues the habit, he or she should be dis- 
charged from the service as soon as it is 
possible to do so without injury to the 
educational work. This last provision is 
made because the writer has known of 
cases where the discharge was summary 
when pupils whose tendency was toward 
inciting mutiny and insubordination gen- 
erally, made difficulty for the successor 
of the deHnquent. On the other hand, he 
has known of instances where the Board 
of Education has deemed it expedient 
to permit such delinquents to retain office to 
the end of the year that the would-be muti- 
neers might not derive encouragement from 
their action. Both these extremes should 
be avoided. 

There is another type of principal who 
seems to feel the full burden of responsi- 
bility resting not only upon himself but 

282 



Education — The Old and the New 

also upon each of his subordinates. He 
is therefore arbitrary and despotic in the 
administration of his work. He governs 
his subordinate teachers with miUtary 
precision, allowing them to exert no per- 
sonal influence over their pupils ; because he 
has done all the planning for the teachers 
and they must teach precisely as he 
directs. Such a principal is an extremist 
and, on this account, is most likely to be 
a promoter of some hobby upon which 
he is experimenting at the pecuniary 
expense of the people, while he is entail- 
ing a more serious expense upon the 
future welfare of the pupils. Such a 
supercilious responsibility-bearer should 
have his burden removed as early as 
propriety will permit; and should be 
allowed to remain unburdened for the 
rest of his natural Hfe. He is of the 
class of persons who are unfit to be 

283 



Education — The Old and the New 

"dressed in a little brief authority." 
The principal should endeavor to find 
and to practice the happy mean between 
these two extremes. 

A fraternal feeling of mutual responsi- 
bility should exist between the principal 
and all his subordinate teachers. While 
the principal should carefully superintend 
the work of the entire school and give 
advice to subordinates where needed, he 
should encourage each teacher to plan 
and to execute such plans for himself or 
herself as best individual wisdom may 
dictate, throwing into the work as much 
personal enthusiasm as possible. 

The pupils should not get the impres- 
sion that the only power for school gov- 
ernment is vested in the principal although 
this may be legally true. The principal 
should, at all times, keep the idea before 
the pupils that they owe due respect and 

284 



Education — The Old and the New 

obedience to the teacher who is instructing 
them and that he is ready and willing to 
support the teachers in the administra- 
tion of their authority. This phase of 
the proper relationship that should exist 
between the principal and subordinates 
is here emphasized because of the evident 
attitude of some principals whom the 
writer has known, whose every bearing 
seemed to mean to both subordinate 
teachers and to pupils, though not in spoken 
words but just as plainly, the expression so 
familiar on the playgrounds, "I am IT." 

But perhaps as this egotist has already 
been sufficiently disposed of it may be 
well to drop him from the discussion as 
he should have been dropped long ago 
from the roll of pubHc educators. 

Cooperation in the best sense on the 
part of all who hold any official position 
in the schools is the only "safe and sane' 

285 



Education — The Old and the New 

and practical way to obtain ideal results 
in the training of our children and youth 
for good citizenship and general efficiency 
in life. Hence the importance of its 
promotion in every practical way. 

Note — Since writing the foregoing 
chapter I have read Perry's "How to 
Manage a City School." His excellent 
treatment of the subject has made this chap- 
ter seem poor in comparison but, "It is 
easy to find fault." So as this chapter is 
the easiest part of the topic I have con- 
cluded to let it remain as it is. "What is writ 
is writ. ' ' This is not an exact quotation from 
Pontius Pilate nor does it seem necessary 
here to give credit to the author of it. 

I would most earnestly recommend a 
careful study of Mr. Perry's work to all 
teachers and school officers; though it is 
chiefly intended as a guide to the principals 
of the public schools. 

286 



CHAPTER XXIX. 



Speciai. Quaufications. Rui.es for 
Teachers. 

1. Above all pecuniary or other con- 
siderations, aim to promote the best 
interests of your country. 

2. Study, not to gratify your ambition 
to make a great reputation, but rather to 
ascertain what you can do to promote 
the welfare of the children placed under 
your care. 

3. Be not content with a sort of general 
psychological investigation in estimating 
the capabilities of your pupils as a mass, 
but remember that each individual is 
entitled to special consideration. 

4. Be systematic. Do not permit in- 
terruptions during recitations. 

287 



Education — The Old and the New 

5. Be punctual yourself. Require 
promptness on the part of your pupils. 

Comments on the Foregoing. 

1 . Reref ence has been made to inculcating 
patriotism among pupils. That there may 
be no misunderstanding of what is meant 
by the writer in the use of this term it is but 
just and proper to say that no lover of his 
country need be exhorted to observe the 
first of the foregoing rules. It should be 
stated further that the unpatriotic should 
never enter the schoolroom as teachers. 
Some explanation as to what is meant by 
patriotism may be appropriate too. While 
we love our flag, it is not because we are 
worshiping the cloth and the emblems 
upon it. What we revere is, what they 
represent to us. Some people manifest 
their patriotism by living sober, law 
abiding lives, and thus contributing by 

288 



Education — The Old and the New 

their example to good citizenship. Those 
who are bidding for votes for office give 
their energies to spread-eagle oratory. 
Still others exhibit their patriotism by 
burning much powder at the expense of, 
not only themselves, but also of others 
whose lives and property are jeopardized 
and often injured or destroyed by their 
folly. This conduct is not indulged in 
for the promotion of the best interests of 
humanity but to gratify their own savage 
instincts. They may not be wilHng to 
admit that such is the case but if they 
will carefully and impartially analyze 
their motives they will find it even so. 
Some people may call such exhibitions, 
innocent amusements, some may go so 
far as to regard them as real patriotism; 
but the true patriot is one who loves his 
country so well that he is willing to deny 
himself of many things of a selfish char- 

289 



Education — The Old and the New 

acter that he may promote the general 
welfare of his countrymen. Neither is 
the desire to shed the blood of the ene- 
mies of our country all there is of patri- 
otism. The true patriot is more cos- 
mopolitan than to limit his love for 
mankind to national boundary lines. 

2. Some teachers imagine that because 
of their having become qualified in a 
legal sense to teach that this is sufficient 
for all future work; whereas the teacher 
should never cease to be a student. What 
has been obtained through college or 
normal school furnishes just the disci- 
pline for further effective study. These 
qualifications are but the means to be wisely 
adapted to the accomplishment of 
ends upon which depend the upbuild- 
ing of the true civilization of the race. 

Further and more particularly for 
the promotion of the habit of study, 

290 



Education — The Old and the New 

introspection should not be neglected. 
3. It is well to generalize, but he who 
loves his fellow man as himself, will carry 
upon his heart the desire for the welfare 
of each child under his immediate care and 
study faithfully the characteristics of 
the mind as well as the bodily conditions 
of each individual. It may be objected 
that this is impossible on account of lack 
of time. This may be true, to a certain 
extent, as our educational system is now 
constituted, but if the needs of the child 
can be best promoted by such further 
care, let it be done even if a greater num- 
ber of teachers are required for the work. 
What is most needed at the present time 
is more individual attention to the pupil. 
It is high time in this enlightened age to 
recognize the fact that pupils are not like so 
many peas in a shell, so nearly the same that 
an inflexible curriculum and method of grad- 

291 
16 



Education — The Old and the New 

ing should apply to all alike. Happily in 
many places this is being realized. 

4. In the fourth place, it may be said 
that much has been accompHshed in the 
last century by systemizing school work. 
Still some kind-hearted teachers who do 
not intend to deviate from the program, 
allow themselves to be interrupted while 
busy with a reciting class by pupils who 
are not reciting but who wish to ask 
questions irrelevant to the subject being 
discussed in the recitation. A place in the 
program should be provided for such re- 
quests from individual pupils when this, 
and nothing else, should be in order. The 
writer has sometimes found when asked 
for information by an individual pupil 
that when assigning the lesson inquired 
about, he had unintentionally omitted 
to give sufficient directions in regard to 
the method of study required. (See in- 

292 



Education — The Old and the New 

stance related in Chap. VII.) He has 
found it most expedient in such cases to 
call the class to the blackboard and to 
supply the needed information, including, 
of course, the answer to the question 
asked by the individual pupil. 

In schools where the asking of questions 
is not made systematic, pupils sometimes 
cross the room ostensibly for information 
but really from idle curiosity. To illustrate : 

The writer was visiting in an official 
capacity a school in a rural district and 
observed that the pupils crossed the room 
very frequently and asked the teacher to 
pronounce words for them. Because con- 
vinced that the real object for crossing 
the room was to get a better view of the 
visitor, he examined one of the number. 
She like others had taken a circuitous 
route to and from the teacher that she 
might have a better opportunity to 

?9? 



Education — The Old and the New 

stare at the visitor. As she passed the 
writer on her return to her seat he asked 
her how the teacher pronounced the word. 
She did not know nor could she remember 
what word she had wished pronounced . By 
a Httle tact in the management of such pupils 
these abuses of privilege are easily ended. 

Interruptions by pupils requesting to 
leave the room should always be in order. 
The writer has had a fixed regulation that 
the pupils making this request should 
remain at the close of the afternoon ses- 
sion to be interviewed by the teacher or 
the principal or by both as to the cause 
of such request. This plan has had the 
desired effect always ; for the pupil dislikes 
being detained after school sufficiently so 
that he is very careful not to ask to leave 
the room on a trivial matter like endeav- 
oring to meet a pupil from another room. 

5. Be prompt yourself and exact prompt- 

294 



Education — The Old and the New 

ness from every pupil, is a rule requiring 
but little comment, but its observance 
is absolutely necessary to success. For 
the teacher, promptness in the use of the 
program, promptness in attending to de- 
linquencies of all kinds, and promptness 
in the opening and the closing of sessions 
are absolutely necessary. The teacher 
should be at her desk before the time ex- 
pires for opening. A half hour in the city 
and an hour in the rural districts before 
the opening of the morning session should 
find the teacher at her desk and the 
principal in his office. There are many 
reasons for this precaution which a little 
experience will make manifest. A special 
reason for punctuality on the part of the 
teacher is that he must be a good example 
to his pupils or the school will fail to be 
a success both in order and in the progress 
of the school work. 

295 



CHAPTER XXX. 



Summary. 



The writer is optimistic enough to be- 
lieve that the future will develop improve- 
ment in curricula, in the general manage- 
ment of schools, in the treatment of so- 
called incapables, and in the improvement 
of citizensip, through our public schools, 
so that we shall reach the ideal educational 
system so much desired by the true 
teacher and the philanthropist. His rea- 
son for this optimism is that during 
his life he has observed so many wonder- 
ful changes for the better and has such 
confidence in the patriotic character of our 
present educators that it is reasonable to 
expect much greater progress in the future 
than there has been in the past, for our 

296 



Education — The Old and the New 

present leaders of public sentiment are 
better educated than were their prede- 
cessors who have wrought these wonder- 
ful improvements, making the future full 
of promise of even greater things. 

In the near future then we may expect 
more intelligent and systematic care for 
the physical well-being of the pupils, m^ore 
attention to a pupil's personal needs, 
more personal enthusiasm on the part of 
the teacher in the management of the 
recitation, a better method of keeping 
records of each pupil's progress as well as 
the progress of the school generally; and, 
best of all, an untrammeled system of 
promulgating moral and spiritual culture. 

A half century's observation and ex- 
perience in school work leads the writer to 
beheve that his outlook is not merely 
visionary but is fully as probable as any 
of the steps taken since the period of the 

297 



Education — The Old and the New 

"Deestrick Skule," when with whip in 
hand, at all hours of the day, the "Skule 
Marster" held despotic sway over tremb- 
ling urchins, the victims of the tyrant 
who was in those days "Keeping Skule." 

Male pupils were then largely in the 
majority, for many well meaning but 
mistaken people thought it unnecessary 
for girls to attempt to become educated; 
that it was impossible, indeed, for the 
"weaker vessel" to obtain an education 
even by the most persevering efforts. All 
now has changed so that more girls than 
boys are graduated from the high schools, 
and lady teachers are largely in the ma- 
jority. 

Many teachers and other educators 
know more about the defects in educational 
work than have yet been noticed by 
writers on pedagogy. Such educators 
should become members of associations 

298 



Education — The Old and the New 

intended to promote improvement in this 
direction and make their influence felt. 

Teachers are especially recommended to 
become members of the National Educa- 
tion Association and be instrumental in 
bringing up discussions upon important 
school topics so that others may contribute 
their part to all problems connected with 
bettering humanity by and through the 
improvement of the schools of our country. 

'Xet us then be up and doing, 
With a heart for any fate; 

Still achieving, still pursuing, 
Learn to labor and to wait." 

— Longfellow. 



299 



AUG 16 1912 



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